ALL WE KNOW

Echoing Ecclesiastes, Ashman explores ordinary miracles through the seasons.

“A cloud knows how to rain. / The thunder, how to boom. // A bulb knows when it’s time to sleep / and when it’s time to bloom.” The gentle rhymes continue as the pages turn, the seasons changing from spring to summer, then fall to winter. Seeds sprout, lambs bleat, waves tumble to the shore, swallows migrate, oak leaves fall, bears hibernate, and hares change to their winter coats. “And—not so very long ago, / on a moonlit night— / you knew how to tell me / that the time was finally right. // The days know how to march along / no matter what we do. / And I know how to love you. / No one taught me… // I just knew.” Ashman’s poetic verses are perfectly complemented by Dyer’s watercolor, acrylic, pencil, and gouache illustrations, which portray the natural world realistically, from the eyelashes on the lamb and the fuzz on the bee to the needles on the evergreen. A curly-haired blond cherub with wonderfully chubby pink cheeks is the focus, enjoying the wonders of nature. When the thunder booms and the waves crash, mother is there to soothe and protect, love, and provide a lap for reading this very book. 

Simply beautiful.