This Love: A Celebration of Harmony Around the World

by Isabel Otter, Harriet Lynas (Illustrator)

Overview

Love is a language that is understood and shared by people all around the world. Whether we’re reading quietly with a loved one or playing on the beach with friends, all across the globe, the love we feel for one another is the same.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680101454
Publisher:	Tiger Tales.
Publication date:	03/05/2019
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 10.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

Isabel Otter is a children's book editor and writer. She grew up in rural Herefordshire, and spent much of her childhood in trees. Isabel loves weaving stories and writing about the world around her.

Editorial Reviews

01/21/2019

In this die-cut picture book, diverse characters, rendered like gentle rag dolls, share in gratitude and quiet affection through the seasons and across the globe. In a winter scene, children cross a bridge (formed by a rainbow-shaped die-cut) over a narrow brook while others play in the snow. Otter writes in melodic, rhyming verse: “I watch the crystal carpet form/ as balls of snow are flung./ Soft flakes float gently on the air,/ then melt on my warm tongue.” In a garden surrounded by jungle, a child and elderly man tend to crops: “We dig a hole, then scatter seeds/ to take care of our land./ My grandpa is a teacher/ with a patient, loving hand.” Elsewhere, a family watches birds alight, and two fathers watch a fireworks display with their children. An uplifting look at finding life’s treasurable moments. Ages 4–7. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2019-01-15

"Love is a special language that's understood by all."

This book, with its simple rhyming text and colorful, painterly illustrations of children and adults in many countries, is a call for appreciating the diversity of families the world over. It starts with a multiracial family of three outside their brick apartment building in North America or Europe and ends when a new baby brother is added. The text is composed of simple messages of joy, familial strength, and friendship. Members of that first family show up in other double-page spreads, but the book ranges far and wide, without specifically identifying the countries illustrated. A grandmother shares a book with a small child in a Middle Eastern setting of comfortable patterned pillows. Another child goes to an African marketplace with a dog, while yet another child in a tropical Asian country learns about agriculture from a grandfather. Two male white parents watch fireworks from a bedroom window with their children in an unknown country. Other countries such as India, Iran, and a Caribbean island appear to be represented. Die cuts—the colored arcs of a rainbow turning into other shapes, then raindrops, then half of a crescent moon—contribute unevenly. The colorful hearts on the endpapers express this book's well-worn but sincere sentiments exactly.

Engaging but nevertheless commonplace. (Picture book. 4-6)

Kirkus Reviews