Reading to young children is such a delight and thankfully even though I’ve retired and no longer have a family daycare in my home, my oldest daughter still runs one at her home.

I love perusing her cupboards full of books and finding a few to read to her daycare children, ages 1 – 10.

Recently I read We All Sing with the Same Voice a book that had a very familiar sound to it the minute I picked it up.  Yes, it comes from Sesame Street and if you’ve ever watched the show I dare you to try and read this one without singing it!

The Story & Illustrations

This story shows the reader / listener children of the world and speaks of the differences, such as:

My hair is black and red
My hair is yellow.
My eyes are and green and blue,
My name is jack and Fred.
My name’s Amanda Sue.
I’m called Kareem Abdu.
My name is you.
 
Through its wonderful illustrations done in a bit of cartoon style and yet drawn to show each child in a natural setting with details befitting the surroundings, we can see the differences clearly.

The medium size black text is written through out the pages on different lines but with a wavy pattern that makes it feel more like text to be sung than just read.  It is placed so that it is easily visible whether reading to child on your lap or holding the book up to a group of listeners.

While the story points out the differences it also clearly shows our similarities with the children doing activities, such as crying, playing a drum, playing in a park, reading, running and watching tv with all different nationalities represented and participating.

The title is the opening line of the chorus that is written several times throughout this book.

We all sing with the same voice,
The same song,
The same voice.
We all sing with the same voice,
And we sing in harmony.
 
 
Our Feelings
 
Thankfully a group of young children aren’t very critical of one’s singing voice and they allowed me to sing the book to them without criticism.
 
After the first read through and when they said “read it again” I encouraged them sing along with me and they enjoyed singing the chorus especially.

The illustrations are wonderful and very eye appealing.  They do a great job of showing differences and similarities as well.  They held the children’s attention throughout the book and made them curious to know more about the children on each page.

We talked about where we thought each child was from, what they might eat, what their climate might be and then talked about how they were the same.  I was delighted when one of the 7 year olds said “they all have a heart.”  That of course led us to discussion about love and family and friends.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book to the children and they loved hearing it a few times.  I didn’t have a CD player to play the included CD to them but I think the next time I read them this book I’ll be sure I have one available.

Nuts & Bolts
 
We All Sing with the Same Voice was written by J. Philip Miller and Sheppard M. Greene and illustrated by Paul Meisel.

HarperCollins Publishers published this 32 page hardcover book with CD in 2001 with a jacket price of $15.95 US and $23.95 CAN

ISBN: 0060274751

Recommended: Yes