ACCESS DIGITIZED EDITION
Guide/Reviews Database
PICTURE BOOKS
Fogliano, Julie

All the Beating Hearts

40 pp. | Holiday/Porter | January, 2023 | Trade ISBN 978-0-8234-5216-3 $18.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-8234-5520-1 $11.99
(2) K-3 Illustrated by Cátia Chien. "Each day starts with the sun." Fogliano (My Best Friend, rev. 3/20) and Chien (The Bear and the Moon, rev. 11/20) use the cycle of a day as a frame for their meditation on existence. Fogliano's prose is at once straightforward and poetic, talking about the routines that make up our days--eating, dressing, playing, whiling away time. Chien's impressionistic pastel and colored-pencil illustrations have a soothing fluidity, but their vibrant colors and textures add a bracing note of contrast. A dream sequence in the middle of the book delves deeply ("and for a little while there / we are all just hearts / beating in the darkness / strong and steady and sure"), and the illustrations follow suit, losing form and taking on a more surreal cast for a few pages. While the text occasionally leans toward New Agey affirmations, Fogliano couches her words in everyday experiences children can understand and even acknowledges loss ("and some things / will die"). Chien's illustrations have an inviting childlike quality in their use of color and in the images and backgrounds, preventing the whole from feeling too highfalutin. Similar in scope and tone to Scanlon and Frazee's All the World (rev. 9/09), this book gives kids something to ponder.
Reviewer: Adrienne L. Pettinelli | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2023

RELATED 

PICTURE BOOKS

Born Ready
by Patterson, Jodie
PICTURE BOOKS

The House of Grass and Sky
by Ray, Mary Lyn
PICTURE BOOKS

The Dog's Gardener
by Storms, Patricia
PICTURE BOOKS

And I Paint It
by Kephart, Beth
PICTURE BOOKS

Poem in My Pocket
by Tougas, Chris
More

Get connected. Join our global community of more than 200,000 librarians and educators.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?