Celebrate the colors of children and the colors of love—not black or white or yellow or red, but roaring brown, whispering gold, tinkling pink, and more. Sheila Hamanaka's All the Colors of the Earth is a classic to share alongside such favorites as We're Different, We're the Same,  All Are Welcome, and The World Needs More Purple People. This beautifully illustrated book "celebrates the beauty of diversity to the fullest through engaging, rhyming text," commented Charnaie Gordon in her Brightly review. All the Colors of the Earth "would be a wonderful book to use in multicultural classrooms in schools." "How better to celebrate ethnic diversity than to look to children, the hope of the future? This glorious picture book does just that."— Booklist "A poetic picture book and an exemplary work of art. The simple text describes children's skin tones and hair in terms of natural phenomena and then describes love for these children with rich colors and flavors. A celebration of diversity." — School Library Journal Grade 1-4-A poetic picture book and an exemplary work of art. The simple text describes children's skin tones and hair in terms of natural phenomena ("...the roaring browns of bears"; "...hair that curls like sleeping cats in snoozy cat colors") and then describes love for these children with rich colors and flavors ("...love comes in cinnamon, walnut, and wheat..."). Hamanaka's oil paintings are all double-page spreads filled with the colors of earth, sky, and water, and the texture of the artist's canvas shines through. The text is arranged in undulant waves across each painting. This might be paired with Arnold Adoff's Black Is Brown Is Tan (HarperCollins, 1973), for younger readers, or his All the Colors of the Race (Lothrop, 1982), for older students, or read alone in celebration of diversity. Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. Ages 3-8. How better to celebrate ethnic diversity than to look to children, the hope of the future? This glorious picture book, with its spare, lyrical text, does just that. Illustrated with oil paintings of youngsters of all ages, the carefully worded text rolls in serpentine swirls across pages on which children "who come in all the colors of the earth" laugh, smile, ponder, join hands, and rejoice in the common pleasure of being young. Upbeat and exuberant, this is a selection to share. Deborah Abbott This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text--``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''-- printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "With her lyrical text and splendid oil paintings, Hamanaka offers a hymn to children everywhere... Extraordinary, light-filled paintings accompany the single curving line of text on each page... These joyful illustrations amply celebrate the richness and diversity of the world's ethnic heritages." - Publishers Weekly Celebrate the colors of children and the colors of love--not black or white or yellow or red, but roaring brown, whispering gold, tinkling pink, and more. "How better to celebrate ethnic diversity than to look to children, the hope of the future? This glorious picture book does just that."--Booklist "A poetic picture book and an exemplary work of art. The simple text describes children's skin tones and hair in terms of natural phenomena...and then describes love for these children with rich colors and flavors....[A] celebration of diversity."--School Library Journal. Sheila Hamanaka is an award-winning fine artist whose work has also appeared in Scholastic magazines as well as in Permanent Connections by Sue Ellen Bridgers and Barbara Campbell's Taking Care of Yoki. Ms. Hamanaka lives in Tappan, New York. Used Book in Good Condition