All the World

All The World. By Liz Garton Scanlon. Illustrated by Marla Frazee. 2009. [September 2009] Simon & Schuster. 40 pages.

Rock,
stone,
pebble,
sand

Body,
shoulder,
arm,
hand

A moat to dig,
a shell to keep

All the world is wide and deep

All the World won a Caldecott Honor this year. All the World is all about the imagery. Using a few words, a few rhymes to make it's point. I would say the book is more an illustrated poem than a traditional story book. Is this good or bad? Well, it depends on the reader. (As it always does. In my opinion, no book is quite so subjective as the picture book genre.) What is the reader looking for? Can the reader appreciate the poem? The imagery the poem uses? The rhythm and rhyme of it? If so, then, yes, All the World is quite a winner. (I'll admit, it reads better if you read it aloud then it does if you just read it silently). If not, then it falls a bit flat.

The illustrations. Did I love them? No, I didn't love them. Love as in think they were the best illustrations ever. But I did like them. I liked the feel of them. There is a bit of a retro feel. Some spreads are quite dramatic and powerful. Others are more quiet, more subdued. I really enjoyed some of these spreads quite a bit.

© Becky Laney of Young Readers