Yoshi

The world isn’t finished yet,
It isn’t quite complete.
It’s still
being
made.

Everywhere you look
and everywhere you listen,
someone or something
is helping
to make the world.

Douglas Wood’s poetic text, accompanied by the marvellous watercolour paintings of Yoshi and Hibiki Miyazaki, considers the ways that natural phenomena, elements, plants, animals (insects, birds, mammals) and a child contribute to the ongoing creation and beauty of the planet.

Wood begins with an ocean breeze and show more seamlessly moves on to a butterfly that “tickles” that breeze, the fluttering wildflower that offers nectar to the butterfly, and the child who bends to smell a flower and feels the breeze in his hair. The author then considers an antelope and the ancient baobab tree that has watched “oceans of antelope wash over the [adjacent] plain” for thousands of years. The tree offers a home to African birds, who reciprocate by offering the silent baobab the gift of music. A cloud that rains down on a pond, “dimpling” the water where koi live; a mountaintop, which “throws silver waterfalls down dark green slopes” and quenches the thirst of dry lands below; a trail which connects farms and villages; squirrel monkeys, the moon, and a moth beating its wings are also contemplated.

Throughout the book, Wood regularly addresses a child who appears in the scene being described. It’s not the same child each time, but one who lives in the current region being presented. We see North and South American, African, and Asian landscapes. The book opens with daytime scenes and ends with a nighttime one that includes the moon, a luna moth with its “feather-duster wings” beating against the window pane, a loving mother, and a child dreaming of all he “might be and all that the world might be.”

Rich in beautiful and appropriate imagery (similes, metaphors, and personification) as well as onomatopoeia, this is a visually and linguistically satisfying picture book.

I’ve used it for a student choral presentation, but it’s also a fine model for writing. I could see children writing their own segments, highlighting the connectedness and beauty of their little corners of the world. show less

In this beautifully illustrated story, a boy begins to capture butterflies. He continues capturing them and has several jars of them. Then, something makes him change his mind. The story ends with the boy setting all the butterflies free.

This story made me think about the desire of humankind to capture nature and change the earth. The final release of the butterflies is a reminder to us all to let those things that we love in life, be free. The illustrations that were actually dyed fabric, show more had vibrant and wild color, reminding us all of the beauty in life. show less

This is it. I'm officially dead.

I can't explain how much sorrow I'm feeling right now. It feels like every new panel is a new knife thrust into my heart.
The more I read the more it hurt, but I couldn't put it down.

I'm devastated, broken, shattered beyond repair.

This book, told as a free verse poem, is about all the things that make up our world. The story shows that the world is still being made and changed everyday. This book would be great to use in a classroom to show children that they too have the power to help change the world.