ONE AND EVERYTHING

What happens when one story starts eating all the other ones?

The main characters of this picture book are colorful circles that contain symbols, characters, and script from living and extinct languages, each representing a story, ranging from tales about “beautiful sunsets” to ones that are “simply full of dogs.” The tales seem to exist in relative harmony until one story decides to be “the most important story in the world.” Calling itself the One, the black-and-white circle begins swallowing other stories whole. The One nearly consumes every story on Earth, “but inside the One’s belly, something was happening”—the other stories, combined into new words, become a Voice. Pushing back against its captor, the Voice gets the One to understand that it is actually Every Story, not merely a single one. This realization causes the One to explode into multitudinous stories, transforming the imagery from monochromatic blob to jewel-toned spheres. The text is sparse and the plot minimal; the heart of Winston’s book is the author’s note, which describes the importance of language preservation and introduces readers to the linguistic characters featured in the illustrations. Though the storyline won’t rivet younger readers, some children may appreciate the extensive appendix about ancient and endangered languages. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A somewhat oversimplified story about stories followed by fascinating backmatter.