Pura Belpre Award (2018)

I love this book -- from the striking illustrations, to the theme of the cycle of life and death, to the lovely relationship between grandaughter and grandfather. Beautiful in pacing, in quiet but thoughtful scope, and a good, healthy introduction to the idea of birth and loss. Just lovely. ( )

All around us is a book with an amazing message. It truly shows how the character learns about the world and people around her with the help of her grandfather. Its a very meaningful story that also touches into multiculturalism in many ways. ( )

""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 Book2018 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."

"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. " From Kirkus Reviews