WE ARE ALL UNDER ONE WIDE SKY

This lyrical counting book is a reminder that no matter what they look like, where they live, or whom they call a family, children all around the world live under the same sky.

The book’s first half is a poem that counts from one up to 10, incorporating imagery ranging from two clouds and three songbirds to ten whirligigs. In the second half of the book, the poem counts back down to one, this time starting with nine shadows and culminating with two “sleepyheads” before ending “under one wide sky,” a refrain that repeatedly pulls the text together. While no countries or faiths are named, the characters and locations in the illustrations clearly hail from all over the world. In one illustration, for example, a young boy wears a yarmulke while in another, an image of what appears to be Australia’s Uluru fills the background. The characters include a child who appears Black, a brown-skinned hijabi, and other kids displaying a variety of hair textures and skin colors. The sparse verse, related in couplets, is studded with gorgeous imagery and ingeniously chosen verbs: On one page, for example, the author describes how shadows “butter” the ground. The illustrator’s use of a muted palette lends the pictures a gentle, ethereal feel that ably complements the text.

A work of understated beauty that will delight both children and the adults who read to them.