Customer Reviews

All the Colors of the Earth (Mulberry Books)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was told about this masterpiece by a dear friend of mine - it is one of her young son's very favorite stories and hers as well. I purchased this book from amazon about 18 months ago (right before my daughter was born) and have kept it on my nightstand ever since. I cannot bear to put this book anywhere else as I love to flip through the pages when the mood suits me - I absolutely adore the illustrations (which are based upon breath-taking canvas oil paintings) and the lyircal verse is abolutely perfect.

My favorite verses: "The tinkling pinks of tiny seashells by the rumbling sea" and "Love is amber and ivory and ginger ans sweet". My favorite illustrations: "roaring bear" & "soaring eagle" and "amber, ivory, ginger" (it looks exactly like my family!).

While this book is perfect for multicultural families (many images of "mixed " families) like my own, it most definitely is a book for EVERYONE!

Everything about this book is wonderful: the message, the verse, the illustrations - the stunning simplicity of it all : "children come in all the colors of love, in endless shades of you and me".

I am a first grade teacher and I use this book in my clasroom every year. It celebrates the beauty of all skin colors, hair colors and eye colors. This book teaches children that they are beautiful and that the people around them (even those who look very different from them) are beautiful as well! The small amount of text makes it short and easy to read, so the focus of a child's attention can be on the message of the book.

I loved this book. Between the beautiful illistrations and the great message, it is a 5 star book. Kids will have fun looking at the pictures and seeing all the kids of different colors. I love a book with a good message.

I had the priviledge to read this exceptional book in December 2000. Well, I should say I had a second grader who read it to me. I am a volunteer at our elementary for a reading program that has children read to me out loud twice a week for 20 to 30 minutes. This child has read this particular book to me on 3 different occassions. It has great use in language, it is flowing and it has great use in its pictures with the children and colors. I'm 48 yrs old and everytime I hear or read this book it puts a tear in my eye and makes my heart swell. The simplistic meaning has a tremendous effect on me. And I'm purchasing atleast 5 copies for my extended family. How anyone sould have a negative thought about the book never got the message in the first place. Thank you Shelia Hamanaka for helping to open my eyes again!

Recently a close friend with mixed race toddlers appealed to me for advice on how to respond to her children's questions about color and difference. She lives in 'monocultural' rural Spain and thought that based upon my own experiences I could share some insight. We chatted for a bit, and then after we hung up I started to search through the old forgotten children's books belonging to my (now teenage) sons for appropriate ones to send her. My boys were happy to part with the picture and early years storybooks I'd found until,that is, I showed them this book 'All the Colors of the Earth'. Individually they both said a categorical "No way!" to the idea of parting with it, and I was both shocked at the level of affection they held for this gorgeous but seemingly discarded book, and secretly proud that in their new worlds of computer games and Manga and loud music that they still harbored a secret place of childhood memories where this fabulous book holds such a special place. My eldest surprised me further by speaking of wanting to share it with his own children in the future-imagine! So I had to buy my friend her own copy and have it shipped to us in the UK, so that we could give it as a present when they came to visit us. The moist-eyed smiles and gasps of delight that both she and her partner gave while flicking through the pages said it all. Looks like yet another family has an heirloom for future generations.

I've been giving this book as a new-baby gift for over a decade now, wanting to help start off the libraries of my friends' multiculti babies with a book that beautifully reflects their diversity. A year and a half ago, I was finally able to give a copy to a baby of my own, and I can't wait for her to be able to read it herself, and to read the letter her mom and I wrote inside the cover to her.

I was fortunate enough to receive this as a prize in a local contest for my kids; they love it! The text, the images, and the meaning are all wonderful. It promotes tolerance without the heavy-handed approach that some books take by simply presenting the reality that children are all different, and yet are bound by love and youthful innocence, and that *that* is a beautiful thing. I highly recommend this book.

Buy this book if you love all people.

~Shauna Schoenborn

I truly hate to go against all the other reviews of this book. I was excited to get it but upon first reading, I felt my insides sinking. First of all, the illustrations are really really outdated and they are, in my opinion, extremely corny. On top of that, I found the prose to be really goofy and unappealing. I felt silly reading them to my three year old daughter, in fact. I'm so sorry to say it but I did not think this book appropriately treated the issue of diversity since it does focus on colors mainly, and the way that it conveys the range of colors is shallow and so overly poetic that it actually is not poetic at all because it turned cliche.

I'm going to keep looking for a good book about diversity for children.

This is a really nice book with beautiful illustrations and an important message acknowledging the differences between people while recognizing that we're actually all the same underneath, no matter the differences in appearance. A great book for everyone.