The Family Of Earth

Lions live in a world of grassy plains. To dolphins, the world is water. Lush green trees make up gorillas' world. And yet, all these animals share the same world. This is the point artist Schim Schimmel makes over and over and over in The Family of Earth: "The earth may look different to each of us, but we share only one earth." Through his surrealistic acrylic paintings of leopards, penguins, hippos, and gorillas, each in their appropriate landscape (or floating in space with the moon and stars and planet Earth hovering nearby), the author-illustrator expresses his beliefs about planetary interdependence. Schimmel describes his paintings as Environmental Visionary Surrealism, and hopes to change the way readers see the world, with intriguing lines like, "Leopards do not swim with dolphins. They have never seen a penguin." Although heavy-handed, The Family of Earth will appeal to devotees of Schimmel's earlier environmental picture books, Dear Children of the Earth, Children of the Earth... Remember. (Ages 4 to 8) --Emilie Coulter