The Rainbow Hand

Book excerpt: The poems in this collection are about mothers and their children, both from the child's perspective and the mother's. Ranging in subject from a child walking in her mother's comforting, protective shadow to a ten-year-old girl wondering if her mother was a freak when she was ten years old to a mother holding her infant son, these poems touch on all aspects of the mother/child relationship. Here is "Mother's Heart": My mother's heart is a bottle I want to fill with warm milk to soothe her hurts with honey to trap her bitterness with a squirt of Tabasco - Shake her up! Inspired by her memories of her mother and her own role as a mother of a young son, these poems, skillfully illustrated in full color by Jennifer Hewitson, create an honest portrait of timeless human connections. Sometimes funny, sometimes sarcastic, always sensitive, the poems will find a ready audience among young people.