All The World

by Liz Garton Scanlon & Marla Frazee

All the World is a beautifully written story of a rich and connected human existence. It encompasses sea, sky, weather, earth, trees, human companionship, and the interconnectedness of us all.

The book is filled with large colourful pages of illustrations in great detail. There are pictures of beautiful trees with children climbing in them, vegetable gardens, with bee hives, birds, people tilling the soil, harvesting, planting and many vibrant details that can be found by inquisitive young eyes as you read to your child.

To sum it all up, I love this book for what it says and also for what it does not say, but which permeates the beautiful artwork for us all to find. It is most deserving of the Caldecott Honor Award, an award, which recognizes the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children each year. The illustrator, Marla Frazee has outdone herself.

Reading the text is also a treat, as the words are so poetically written that they could stand alone as a single poem and seem to roll off the tongue perfectly balanced.

My favourite lines of the book are from the last few pages, which sum up the message as follows:

Everything you hear, smell, see
All the world is everything
Everything is you and me
Hope and peace and love and trust
All the world is all of us

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