"This far-reaching metaphysical outing, an addition to Toon’s early reader comics series, focuses on the microscopic and the immense as well as individuality and collectivity. With abstract, psychedelic art, Crane introduces a white, moonlike orb that grows arms and emerges from the darkness after a page turn: “I am one.” The being next appears—smiling, with its arms outstretched—within the chest of a second, long-limbed figure. As the book moves along, the book shows this being as a part of an interconnected whole that comprises the planet and its fundamental materials (“made of air/ and of cloud/ made of water/ and of earth/ and seed”) until the materials become flesh (“of leaf and fruit/ and bug and bee/ and bone and meat”). As the book zooms into the biological, readers glimpse the inside of a neon pink bird’s stomach and the ventricles of a beating heart, and atoms are rendered as dramatic, kaleidoscopic forms. Finally, as the book zooms back out, long-limbed beings join the first figure, all with similar orbs that grow from their chests, connecting and pooling together: “We are all one.” This is a strange and lovely meditation on wholeness." Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW "With bright artwork and a spare, poetic text, this inviting comic for little ones takes on a truly gigantic topic: the interconnectedness of the universe... It’s eye-catching stuff, and the tone of the text is general enough that, if the concept soars over the heads of little ones, they’ll still be able to grasp the overall message, which is warm, encouraging, and hopeful." Booklist?"It’s just an excellent book, period. Essentially, it falls into the same category of The Same Stuff As Stars, but goes granular. It may even contain the most beautiful rendering of DNA I’ve ever seen in a picture book. Prepare to have your little mind blown (and in shockingly few words too)."
Betsy Bird for School Library Journal "The language is poetic but accessible...a worthwhile purchase for libraries seeking additional beginning readers." School Library Journal One of Paul Gravett's Top 25 Graphic Novels of September 2018 "Sparse text that can be inferred from the artwork and striking illustrations in day-glo colors make this an accessible title for new readers. Some of the spreads are downright gorgeous, as they depict in detail how seeds grow or a human heart." Youth Services Book Review "The ways in which these concepts are illustrated is the reason [young readers] will sit and turn the pages." ICv2 "This seemingly simple book about interdependence reminds us that we are all made of the same stuff, and that we are part of the bigger world." Angela Reynolds, Librarian Rob Clough analyzes the visual devices that makes We Are All Me flow and convey meaning at High Low Comics: Design king Crane's We Are All Me is deceptively simple. Another Level One book, there's just a few words of text on each page. However, the book is conceptually complex, as Jordan asks the reader to shift their perspective multiple times. He starts out exploring our relationship with the environment as the pages bleed into each other in terms of color. Air, water and earth flow into one another as smoothly as Crane's crisp color patterns. There's just a joyous rhythm to this comic, both in terms of visuals and words, like the lines "and bone and meat/and beat beat beat". Flipping over to the heart with the last line, there's an explosion of pink, orange, and blue on the page as Crane went in the opposite direction, going smaller and smaller until he reaches the subatomic level. Crane goes beyond that to make some interesting claims regarding sentience arising at that level and that all of it (and us) are connected. Heady stuff, but Crane clearly respects his audience enough to think them capable of understanding it conceptually. Thanks to his bold and dynamic use of color, he's right to think so.
Finalist for 2019 Excellence In Graphic Literature Award, Best in Children's Graphic Literature (Nonfiction)!
08/01/2018
K-Gr 2—This latest in Toon's line of comics for young readers explores the interconnectedness of all living beings. Crane lists the elements that make up our world, starting with the planet itself and moving from the air and clouds to plants and animals and finally to the tiniest cells and atoms. The colorful, eye-popping cartoons are the highlight of the work. The use of black as an accent color on each page shows the common thread between each component. The language is poetic but accessible, with two-to-four words per page. However, while the message is beautiful, some children may find it too abstract, and adults might need to provide context. VERDICT A worthwhile purchase for libraries seeking additional beginning readers.—Kathryn Justus, Renbrook School, West Hartford, CT
2018-06-25
An early-reader meditation on interdependence.The backmatter explains that the book's concept originated with the author's wife during a July Fourth hike when she came up with the idea for an "Interdependence Day…to celebrate all the ways we are connected to one another and to the planet." This note would have been better placed as frontmatter to guide readers into and through the book's abstract meanderings. Throughout, words and pictures describe beings and their interconnectedness, but while the art is captivating in its graphic, sometimes nearly psychedelic play with color and form, meaning is elusive. The first image shows what appears to be a white celestial body surrounded by points of light. A page turn then reads, "I AM ONE," beside a picture of what now seems to be a white smiley face atop two arms. "HERE IN A BODY," reads the facing page, and that white being is now within the chest of a black body that's Haring-like in its simplicity but with eyes looking at the internal being. The text then places the being "ALIVE IN A WORLD" that is "MADE OF AIR / AND OF CLOUD / MADE OF WATER / AND OF EARTH / AND SEED," etc. The closing pages return to the two-in-one being and then show it with others, but ironically, there's ultimately failure to make words and pictures work interdependently to express the central concept of interdependence. Ambitious but weak. (Early reader. 6-8)
