WE'VE GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN OUR HANDS

A classic spiritual gets a brand-new twist in this oversized picture book by López in which diverse children share a glorious, colorful world of nature.

From windows in a patchwork globe on the cover, children reach out, smiling. A multicolored yarn loops and stretches, leading off the cover page and into the book. The yarn lands in a ball at the feet of a girl against a white background. She fills her arms with it as the words begin: “We’ve got the whole world in our hands.” She then lets the yarn fly upward, and the loops continue across the spread, where other children smile and reach up toward it. As the pages progress, more and more children reach out their hands to “hold” the ever deepening landscape around them (“We’ve got the sun and the rain in our hands. / We’ve got the moon and the stars in our hands”). Deserts, forests, mountains, oceans, and all sorts of wildlife appear as children of various skin tones, hair textures, and attire follow the colored yarn; one child who uses a wheelchair appears in the first few pages but then disappears. The children begin to play with the yarn and with one another, until the children and animals, backgrounded by landmarks from different parts of the world, share one page, then fly off together in a hot air balloon. This unconventional interpretation of the classic song finds a modern application with joyful illustrations that send a message of hope and power to today’s children. A bilingual English/Spanish edition publishes simultaneously.

A beautiful vision of a global community.