Finding circles everywhere, a grandfather and his granddaughter meditate on the cycles of life and nature. - (Baker & Taylor)
American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor - American Indian Library Association
Pura Belpré Illustrator Award Honor - American Library Association (ALA)
This gorgeous picture book -- winner of the Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor and American Indian Youth Literature Award Picture Book Honor -- celebrates the circles that surround us, in the sky, the earth, our neighborhoods, ourselves... if we just dare to look for them.
Grandpa says circles are all around us. He points to the rainbow that rises high in the sky after a thundercloud has come. "Can you see? That's only half of the circle. That rest of it is down below, in the earth." He and his granddaughter meditate on gardens and seeds, on circles seen and unseen, inside and outside us, on where our bodies come from and where they return to. They share and create family traditions in this stunning exploration of the cycles of life and nature.
This mind-bending, heart-opening book marked the impressive debut of Xelena González and Adriana M. Garcia as picture-book creators.
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Lee & Low Books)
This gorgeous picture book -- winner of the Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor and American Indian Youth Literature Award Picture Book Honor -- celebrates the circles that surround us, in the sky, the earth, our neighborhoods, ourselves... if we just dare to look for them.
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Lee & Low Books)
"All Around Us begs to be shared over and over."—Yuyi Morales
"A transcendent, perfectly gorgeous book."—Naomi Shihab Nye
ALSC Notable Children’s Book
2018 Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor Book<>
2018 American Indian Youth Literature Award: Picture Book Honor
Best Picture Book, Texas Institute of Letters
2017 Tomás Rivera Children’s Book Award
Grandpa says circles are all around us. He points to the rainbow that rises high in the sky after a thundercloud has come. "Can you see? That's only half of the circle. That rest of it is down below, in the earth." He and his granddaughter meditate on gardens and seeds, on circles seen and unseen, inside and outside us, on where our bodies come from and where they return to. They share and create family traditions in this stunning exploration of the cycles of life and nature.
This is a debut picture book for Xelena Gonzalez and Adriana Garcia.
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Perseus Publishing)
"All Around Us begs to be shared over and over."—Yuyi Morales
"A transcendent, perfectly gorgeous book."'Naomi Shihab Nye
ALSC Notable Children’s Book
2018 Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor Book<>
2018 American Indian Youth Literature Award: Picture Book Honor
Best Picture Book, Texas Institute of Letters
2017 Tomás Rivera Children’s Book Award
Grandpa says circles are all around us. He points to the rainbow that rises high in the sky after a thundercloud has come. "Can you see? That's only half of the circle. That rest of it is down below, in the earth." He and his granddaughter meditate on gardens and seeds, on circles seen and unseen, inside and outside us, on where our bodies come from and where they return to. They share and create family traditions in this stunning exploration of the cycles of life and nature.
This is a debut picture book for Xelena Gonzalez and Adriana Garcia.
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Perseus Publishing)
Circles are all around us. We just have to look for them. Sometimes they exist in the most unusual places.
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Perseus Publishing)
Xelena González practices the healing arts through writing and movement. She is a storyteller, dancer, and visiting author who centers self-love in her multi-disciplinary workshops for all ages. Her award-winning picture books include All Around Us and Where Wonder Grows. A former librarian and enrolled member of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, Xelena has become a sought-after speaker on topics such as radical self love, creative early literacy strategies, inhabiting story through music and movement, and reclaiming indigenous identity in Latinx communities. She still lives in San Antonio, where she grew up. Find out more at xelena.space.
Adriana M. Garcia is a visual artist, a muralist, and an illustrator. She is the recipient of a Pura Belpré Illustrator Award for Where Wonder Grows and a Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor for All Around Us, both picture books by Xelena González. Garcia has exhibited her artwork nationally and has presented at conferences, schools, and museums around the United States. She especially loves painting portraits of strong women to honor those who have come before and those who continue to lead by example. Garcia lives in San Antonio, Texas, and you can find her online at adrianamjgarcia.com.
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Lee & Low Books)
Xelena González has roots in San Antonio, Texas, but has stretched her wings to fly all the way to Guangzhou, China, where she works as a librarian in an international school. She studied journalism at Northwestern University and library science at Texas Woman’s University, but her true training as a storyteller has come from getting to know other living beings—including plants, animals, and people who happen to speak different languages or see the world in unusual ways. She tells these stories through picture books, essays, song, and dance. All Around Us is her first book.
Adriana M. Garcia creates as a way to document lives and to honor the human existence, aiming to extract the inherent liminality of a moment before action as a way to articulate our stories. She is proficient both in traditional painting as well as web-based new-media applications. For this particular project, Adriana and her collaborator have challenged each other to answer complex questions about culture, humanity, and unique worldviews in a way that is simple, universal, and appealing enough to reach the youngest members of our society. All Around Us is her first book illustration project.
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Perseus Publishing)
Xelena González has roots in San Antonio, Texas, but has stretched her wings to fly all the way to Guangzhou, China, where she works as a librarian in an international school. She studied journalism at Northwestern University and library science at Texas Woman's University, but her true training as a storyteller has come from getting to know other living beings—including plants, animals, and people who happen to speak different languages or see the world in unusual ways. She tells these stories through picture books, essays, song, and dance. All Around Us is her first book.
Adriana M. Garcia creates as a way to document lives and to honor the human existence, aiming to extract the inherent liminality of a moment before action as a way to articulate our stories. She is proficient both in traditional painting as well as web-based new-media applications. For this particular project, Adriana and her collaborator have challenged each other to answer complex questions about culture, humanity, and unique worldviews in a way that is simple, universal, and appealing enough to reach the youngest members of our society. All Around Us is her first book illustration project.
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Perseus Publishing)
Booklist Reviews
A young girl with Native American and Spanish heritage learns from her grandfather that circles are all around us. The moon, clocks, wheels, and the sun are all common circles we see almost every day, though we may not notice them. Grandfather points out that a rainbow is only half a circle; the other half is under the surface, representing that what comes from the earth goes back into it again, creating a circle of life. The warm relationship the two share is evident as the girl happily absorbs the lessons, often spiritual in nature, that her grandpa teaches. Garcia's colorful mixed-media illustrations reveal images placed upon paintings with what appears to be chalk, pen and ink, and colored pencil. A circle motif, including the arcing of the text, highlights almost every spread, emphasizing the prevalence of the shape. Joyce Sidman's Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature (2011) can be used as a companion title that also teaches about the pervasiveness of common shapes in nature. Copyright 2017 Booklist Reviews.
Horn Book Guide Reviews
A girl learns about the cycle of life, death, and renewal from her grandfather as they work in the garden, take a walk, and water a tree planted when the girl was born. Verdant illustrations full of circles and arced lines keep the focus on the close-knit pair as they explore the life-affirming traditions of their mestizo heritage; a note discusses Gonzalez's "mix of Native American and Spanish ancestry." Copyright 2018 Horn Book Guide Reviews.
Kirkus Reviews
In González and Garcia's picture-book debut, a girl and her grandfather reflect on the cycles that characterize life, death, and renewal. "Grandpa says circles are all around us." Above the girl's head, a rainbow stretches across the sky, a vibrant half circle. The other half? It's beneath the Earth, unseen, nourishing. With this modest declaration, González asks readers to rethink the world as one full of unceasing rebirth. A clearer example of this viewpoint soon follows. In the garden, Grandpa and the girl tend to their lettuce, carrots, and chiles, with the resulting stems, leaves, and seeds going back into the ground. "What we take from the earth we return," says Grandpa. Measured and subdued, the bare-bones story demands patience, which may irk readers with a preference for livelier stories, but the author's direct approach and light touch soften the otherwise weighty subject matter. Faded, sketched lines and arcs of dense light enclose the girl and Grandpa ( both depicted with golden-brown skin) in half-formed and fully formed circles from picture to picture, while shadows and colors intertwine with people and the scenes around them. On a smaller scale, the duo notes how circles shape their bellies as well as their eyes. Yet it's the final scene—a girl and her grandfather sitting near the buried ashes of their ancestors—that brings everything full circle. In her author's note, González, a member of the Auteca Paguame family of the Tap Pilam Coahuitecan nation, references her, and by extension her characters', mestizo heritage. Life-affirming in its quiet splendor. (author's note) (Picture book. 3-7) Copyright Kirkus 2017 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
PW Annex Reviews
A girl and her grandfather contemplate circles, both physical and metaphorical, in this thought-provoking tale of family, community, and interconnection, a debut for both author and artist. As they walk through a suburban neighborhood of shingled houses and chain-link fences, the grandfather suggests that a rainbow overhead is actually a full circle: "The rest of it is down below, in the earth, where water and light feed new life." Soon, the girl is noticing circles everywhere, including the roundness of their eyes and the way her grandfather "saves the stems, leaves, and seeds" of the vegetables they grow to rebury. "What we take from the earth, we return," he tells her. On several pages, González's text follows soaring arcs itself, and circular shapes dominate Garcia's multilayered illustrations. Her tender portraits highlight the intimate bond between the narrator and her grandfather, while bright, zigzagging lines create a setting that hums with energy, underscoring a connection between people and planet. The family's mestizo heritage is central to the story, including a tradition of burying a mother's placenta when a child is born, which the author's note discusses in more detail. Ages 3–7. (Sept.)
Copyright 2017 Publisher Weekly Annex.
