Kim Michelle Toft’s The World That We Want is a sparkling visual reference book. It sure looks like she used gold leaf to outline the delicate features of the 45 plants, birds, animals, and aquatic life that literally fill every page of this beautiful book. A glossary identifies and describes the inhabitants of nine different environments: air, rain forest, river, mangrove, beach, tide pool, reef, atoll, and ocean. The text is a familiar narrative structure. For example, after visiting air, rainforest, river, and mangrove we read “…This is the beach that meets the mangrove that follows the river that weaves through the forest that filters the air that circles the world that we want.” It’s a clever formula for teaching the unity of life in a succinct and effective way.
This book is read aloud online by Laura Shaver.
My Picture Book Talk for this story is here.
