Review: All the World

All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This book blows me away. The debt Frazee owes to Virginia Lee Burton is deep. But this book made me think Burton had died and been reincarnated with a wisdom from looking at the intervening 45 years since her passing in 1968. The expansive double page spreads are up there with the best of Burton's compositions(Life Story is probably my favorite for this).

Once again, there is a kind of switching between complementary and counterpoint illustrations in this book that is unusual for today's author-illustrator pairings. Because Scanlon is from Austin, the West-coast small town look is obviously Frazee's, but it's a fascinating take on a text that probably wasn't envisioned with a coastal scene.

I was just as smitten by Scanlon's words, and had a hard time remembering that this book was made by two separate people. The abstractness of the poem reminds me of jump rope or hand clap rhymes where the purpose is not narrative, but rather rhythmic and symbolic.

Because I reviewed three of Frazee's books in just under two weeks, I'm just amazed by her work again. I can't wait for God Got a Dog to come out this year, another collaboration between Scanlon & Frazee!



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