All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee - review

All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee

One of the things I have always thought was odd about hard-line Waldorf School philosophy - and before you email me, let it be known that I have one marvelous little cousin and one fantastic grown-up niece who are Waldorf products, and I have no problem at all giving the Waldorfers some of the credit for how beautifully they have turned out so far - but as I said, one of the odder dicta of Waldorf founder Rudolf Steiner, and he had a LOT of dicta, guy was just Mr. Ruley Rulemonger, and some schools are all like, "Yes SIR Mr. Steiner sir - we'll build our classrooms with NO CORNERS," and some schools, like my cousin's school in Hawaii, are all kind of like, "Oh yeah, but knitting? Brah, it's hot here like, we don't really need knitwear. How about we teach em all how to juggle?" and that works for them.

But one of the Waldorf things is that there should be no shadows in a child's early life. And hence, there is no black crayon in the crayon box at a Waldorf school.

And I am NO anthroposophist. I am not even a teacher. If that works for them, hey wow. I figure, any school that actually has an educational philosophy (as long as it isn't, like, "Let's ignore stuff that makes us uncomfortable") is way ahead. My kids' school is a Reggio Emilio-inspired school. Do I know what that means? Not super much. But does it mean that teachers have meetings discussing how to implement that philosophy? Yes. Yes it does. And do those meetings give those teachers an additional opportunity to discuss different strategies for working with each student's strengths and weaknesses? Yup. And that is good.

But if you asked, I would say that, since black exists in nature, a kid should have black in her crayon box. Would I fight the Waldorf teachers on it, if my kids went to a Waldorf school? No. But that's what I think. And Marla Frazee, whose work in this book has recently been recognized by The New York Times, notably pulls the black crayon out of the box - to great effect - in All the World.

There is blue sky, there is green farmland. All beautiful. There are adults and children and older folks of all sizes and colors, grouped in all the ways that can make a family. Also, all beautiful. But the rocks on the beach are dark gray. And the pond during a thunderstorm is darker gray. Shadows are black. Wind is black. Also beautiful. The darkness, as night falls around a warmly lit roadside restaurant, is dark. I love this. Without being specific, or even mentioning it in the lovely text, darkness is included in the book's inventory of nonthreatening things to be found in our world.

My homies at School Library Journal called it "Perfection," and yo, we do not hand out that kind of epithet lightly. My kids enjoyed this book as much as my husband and I did. They liked the lilting poetry, and following the various families throughout the book. If you can make it through to the massive music jam at the end without a sniffle, you're a better man than me. I'm giving it to the kindergarten teacher for Christmas.