The late writer Theodore Sturgeon maintained that 90% of everything is crap, and by jove he might’ve been on to something there. Movies and music, most definitely, and the same can probably be said of children’s books as well. Typically Jane and Billy (or Fido and Fluffy) wander around a washed-out world learning to share, watching workers earn their daily crust…all with about as much wonder as a Walmart sock display. It might all be completely riveting at the age of 2, but so then is a paper bag.
Imagine our delight, then, when we came across Jenny Broom’s and illustrator Lotta Nieminen’s inventive new work Walk this World. With several diecuts and folds, the 24-page book whisks young people to several cities around the world, enabling them to open doors here and there to see how life is lived in various lands.
Open a karaoke bar in Japan to witness a couple of girls belting out the latest tunes, or open a bus in Africa to spy a woman inside with a chicken on her lap. With just a few pages a child can learn something about people from far away lands, and discover the joy of a well-designed book, too…all without ever enduring the charms of the TSA.
