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 featured book review: december 2002 All I See is Part of Me by Chara M. Curtis / Illustrated by Cynthia Aldrich for Ages 4-8 (from Illumination Arts, 1994) Imagine if you will a children's book that turns up with five-star reviews on atheist and Christian booklists, both with the rapt assurance that it is a perfect expression of their point of view. That's the situation with ALL I SEE IS PART OF ME, a book that can only be described as extraordinary. Illustrated in vibrant penciled pastels, it is visually stunning. But it is the text that is especially fascinating -- positively guaranteed to confuse and irritate as many as it pleases. A little child (intentionally drawn androgynously) "realizes" that he/she is deeply connected to the entire universe -- a sort of "death of dualism" in children's book form. "I used to think that I was small... A little body, that was all. But then one day I asked the Sun, 'Who are you?' He beamed, 'We are one.'" The child's inquiry moves on to stars, animals, trees -- all siblings, but even more than that: in the parlance of the book, they are all ONE. So what's the message? Well, read it as you will. It's straightforward pantheism, if anything, with a heavy dose of the evolutionary perspective that notes our ultimate origins as stardust. But Christians have no trouble seeing an endorsement of their own perspective ("It is a book inspired by God!" raves one Amazon reviewer), and a Listmania list of "Books for Pagan Children" includes it with the same sense of perfect fit. My guess is that Curtis is of a New-Age persuasion if anything -- a theory borne out by blissridden Amazon reviewers with handles like "blessedbythemoon." There's no problem seeing it as a thought-provoking and wonder-inducing book for atheist kids as well. There is no overt reference to theism or to any specifically religious notions (with one exception that I'll cover in the next paragraph). In fact, it can encourage some excellent discussion and insight regarding non-duality and unity of origins, something that is quite decisively non-Christian. The book does take a couple of strange turns that give it a particularly New Age flavor at times. And four layouts from the end (pages are unnumbered) is a couplet in which the atheist reader gulps hard for the first clause, while the Christian gulps in the second: "I said a prayer I know was heard...'Cause all that is hears every word!" It's a prayer, yes, but an utterly pantheistic one -- or at most an "immanent" rather than "transcendent" Christian prayer. Turn the page again and the praying child has burst into dazzling rays of light. An evangelical moment? No no, not in the context of the book. She/he is becoming the light of the sun and the stars. The text concludes with an odd assertion as he/she "realizes" that "there can be no end..." -- and we're back to Age-of-Aquarius fuzzywuzzyness. All in all, it's just too interesting and unusual a book to pass up. |
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