Hands Up!

This triumphant picture book celebrates Black joy by reclaiming a charged phrase and showing readers how resistance can be part of their everyday lives.

A young Black girl lifts her baby hands up to greet the sun, reaches her hands up for a book on a high shelf, and raises her hands up in praise at a church service. She stretches her hands up high like a plane's wings and whizzes down a hill so fast on her bike with her hands way up. As she grows, she lives through everyday moments of joy, love, and sadness. And when she gets a little older, she joins together with her family and her community in a protest march, where they lift their hands up together in resistance and strength.

Breanna J. McDaniel is an author and children's literature scholar. She holds an MA in children's literature from Simmons University and is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Cambridge, where her research focuses on representations of Black children in contemporary picture books. Born and raised in Atlanta, she currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Shane W. Evans is the author and illustrator of more than thirty books for children, including Chocolate Me!, We March, and Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom, which received the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where he runs Dream Studio, a community art space.