A Picture Book a Day for a Year: Day 37

Picture Book: All the World

Author: Liz Garton Scanlon

Illustrator: Marta Frazee

Summary: This wonderful book follows a circle of human families of all kinds throughout a day of outside activities. When rain comes, the families come together in another family’s restaurant. They share songs and sweet good nights. Each beautiful double page spread emphasizes our connections with the natural world and other humans.

Hanna’s Comments: This book is like looking at the night sky. You feel as if you are a small but significant piece of humanity in the beautiful masterwork of the natural world. The meter of the poetry allows for slow reading and the pages are big on most versions so help your audience catch the details in these fabulous illustrations. Finding the blessings of connections, just like I do in Picture Book Theology, seems to be the theme of this picture book, one of my all-time favorites.
Publisher & Date of Publication: Beach Lane Books, 2009

Age and Grade Appropriateness: 3 and up, Pre and up

# of Pages: 40

Available in Spanish? Yes

Formats other than Book: A video of this book can be found on a Scholastic compilation of 4 picture book videos called: Children Make Terrible Pets and More Stories about Family

PBT Category: Award Winner (Caldecott Honor)

PBT Topics this Book Connects with: abundance/bounty, affection, attentiveness/observation/seeing, awe, beach/ocean/pond/river/sea/shore, beauty, belonging, blessings, body of Christ, bonds/connections/connectedness, caring/tending, celebration/party, change, choir/music/singing/songs, citizenship, community, cooperation, creation, dependence/ interdependence, diversity, the environment/nature, exploration, family, feasting/food/hunger/nutrition, flowers/leaves/trees, fruit/fruit of the spirit, gardening/planting/pruning/sowing, gladness/happiness, God’s presence, goodness, grandparents, gratitude/thankfulness/thanksgiving, hospitality, humanity, image of God, joy, kingdom of God/reign of God, labor/work, life, listening, love, manna, neighbors, neighborhood, nurturing, openness, parents/parental love, participation, passion, play, rain, reverence, Sabbath, safe place/sanctuary, sharing, at table, treasure, unity, variety, water, weather, wonder, works vs. faith or grace, worship

Scripture Connections: Creation (Genesis 1 or 2), Feeding of the 5,000 (John 6:1-15), Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12)

Idea(s) for Application: Read this book during a lesson on finding the holy in the ordinary or how we are all connected.