A Kiss Goodbye (The Kissing Hand)

by Audrey Penn (Author) Barbara Leonard Gibson (Illustrator)

A Kiss Goodbye (The Kissing Hand)
Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade
Series: Kissing Hand
Moving is hard on everyone, but especially children. Chester Racoon, whom readers have come to know and love through the New York Times bestseller The Kissing Hand, and its sequel, A Pocket Full of Kisses, is facing another dilemma common to the lives of many children; he and his family are moving. Young readers will love the way Chester says goodbye to his old home and learns that there are some exciting aspects to his new home.
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Publishers Weekly

In The Kissing Hand and A Pocket of Kisses, Chester the raccoon overcomes the traumas of going off to school for the first time and adjusting to a new brother. Here he faces a move, since the tree that is home to him, his mother and brother Ronny is being cut down. In rather overstated prose, his mother addresses Chester's reluctance to leave their beloved hollow: "'I understand how you feel,' she told him in an understanding, motherly voice, 'but I'm afraid we all have to move.'" After the stubborn youngster questions what would happen if he refused to move, his parent cajolingly asks, "Aren't you afraid you'd miss us?" Chester wryly responds, "I'd miss you.... I'm not so sure about Ronny." Penn and Gibson resurrect their earlier books' popular power-of-the-palm-kiss motif as Chester, in a departing gesture, places "a gentle kiss on his palm and pushed it against the wall," while the accompanying illustration reveals glowing red hearts emanating from his paw. Not surprisingly, the skeptical animal finds a new friend immediately after moving into his new hollow and, scooting off to play with her, sends his mother a heart-projecting palm kiss and announces, "All right... I'll stay." Featuring a palette that varies considerably as the tale's scenarios move between day and night, Gibson's sharply focused art effectively conveys Chester's changeable moods. Its sometimes treacly tone notwithstanding, this tale, like its predecessors, should provide reassurance to kids facing a similar transition, as well as a useful starting point for adult-child dialogue. Ages 3-8.(May)

Copyright 2007 Publishers Weekly, Used with permission.

Audrey Penn
Audrey Penn takes her one-woman educational program, the Writing Penn, into schools, libraries, and children's hospitals where she shapes and refines her story ideas in partnership with kids. She is also highly sought after as a conference keynote speaker by groups of teachers and other professionals who work with children.

An award-winning illustrator, Barbara Leonard Gibson was a freelance artist in the Baltimore-Washington area for twenty-five years. Originally from New York, and with a degree in Fine Art and Design from Carnegie Mellon University, she worked in many areas including historical illustration, children's books, and magazines, cartooning, portraiture, wildlife illustration, natural sciences, advertising, fantasy, and science fiction.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781933718040
Lexile Measure
580
Guided Reading Level
L
Publisher
Tanglewood
Publication date
April 15, 2007
Series
Kissing Hand
BISAC categories
JUV002160 - Juvenile Fiction | Animals | Mammals
Library of Congress categories
Families
Family life
Moving, Household
Raccoon
Keystone to Reading Book Award
Nominee 2008 - 2009

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