Another darling picture book, dedicated to Jeffers' son Harland: "This book was written in the first two months of your life as I tried to make sense of it all for you.
"These are the things that I think you need to know."
Underneath Jeffers' dedication, there's a quotation from J.M. Barrie: "Shall we make a new rule from tonight?: always try to be a little kinder than necessary?"
This book explains everything (well, just about). An illustration of the solar system begins the tale (with a little note in the lower left corner: "probably not to scale").
The "quick tour" continues with an explanation that earth is made up of two things: land and sea. Further, mountains are pointy, hills are bumpy, prairies are flat and marshes are wet. An illustration of the sea follows, complete with deep sea diver and sunken galleon.
Next: the sky, human anatomy, and the importance of dressing warmly when you're eating pizza around a campfire with your friends. People may look different, but they're all people. Animals are even more various in their appearance and they can't talk; but that's no reason not to be nice to them.
When the sun is out, we do stuff and when it's dark, we sleep (Please?). There's an illustration of the Atlantic Ocean, with New York on one side and London on the other. (You know it's London because you can see St. Mary Axe and the BT Tower, and the fast train to Avignon. Ireland has moved to somewhere slightly west of New Jersey, as that's where the castles are.)
Jeffers sums up: "Well, that is Planet Earth. Make sure you look after it, as it's all we've got."
The illustrations are so magnificent.
The book ends with epigrams: Dr. Sally Ride reporting how fragile the Earth looks from space, R. Buckminster Fuller noting that just as we maintain our cars to keep them running smoothly, we must care for the machine called Earth; and Oliver's own Dad, an "All round good human," who says: "There are only three words to live by, Son: respect, consideration, and tolerance."
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