Top 100 Picture Books #95: The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn

#95 The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn (2007)
21 points

Sometimes also known as The Book We Cannot Keep In Stock.  How funny that this should be paired right next to Ira Sleeps Over on the list.  Apparently the mid-90s constitute the anxiety block on our poll’s list.  While Ira feared aspects of sleeping over, The Kissing Hand is most frequently cited as the book you use to send your child off to kindergarten.

The description from SLJ reads, “Chester Raccoon is going to school for the first time and he’s nervous. His mother reassures him, and places a kiss in the palm of his hand. Now it’s a ‘kissing hand.’ Whenever he’s lonely or afraid, he can place that hand on his cheek and feel his mother’s kiss. Chester gives his mother a kissing hand as well, and heads off to school.”

This title falls dangerously close to the realm of the sentimental picture book.  However, while books like Love You Forever and others that may or may not appear on this list are reviled long and loud, The Kissing Hand seems to raise no ire.  It simply fulfills its purpose in life and continues onward after that.  Not surprisingly, it’s a reading list staple for many. Equally unsurprising is the fact that the book has launched many a sequel.  These include (but are not limited to) A Pocket Full of Kisses, A Kiss Goodbye, Chester Raccoon and The Big Bad Bully, Chester’s Change of Heart, Chester the Brave, and Chester Raccoon and the Acorn Full of Memories.

• There is a Kissing Hand cookie recipe out there.  Though I suspect that if certain little boys got ahold of these cookies they would redub them something along the lines of “bloody hand cookies”, so consider it as a possible Halloween entertainment nosh as well.

• Another recipe.  Less bloody.  Interesting because while I don’t think the creator meant them to, the hands look far more raccoony.

• Yet another recipe.  After a while they start to seem Biblical.  Or is it just me?

Filed under: Best Books, Top 100 Picture Books Poll