By Audrey Penn
A little raccoon dreads his first night at school, so his mother kisses the middle of his palm — a kiss he can press to his cheek and feel any time he misses her.
Chester Raccoon doesn't want to go to school. He'd rather stay home with his mother, his friends, and his books, and he says so. Instead of arguing, she tells him a secret her own mother once told her. She takes his hand, kisses him right in the center of the palm, and closes his fingers over the kiss. Now, any time school starts to feel lonely, he can press his hand to his cheek and feel her love travel all the way up his arm. He heads off with the kiss warming his hand. And before he goes, he presses one into her palm to keep too.
A first-night-at-school worry is a hard thing for a young child to hold: my mother won't be there. What this book does is give that worry a physical answer. The kiss in the palm is something a child can actually reach for, hand to cheek, at the moment the missing hits hardest. Teachers and parents have leaned on the kissing hand as a real drop-off ritual for decades because a child can carry it out of the book and through the classroom door. It says the fear out loud first, then puts something small and portable in the hand to take along.