We

by Alice Schertle, Kenneth Addison (Illustrator)

A poetic exploration of the emergence of humankind out of Africa, following the course of human development from seven million years ago to today.

Genres: Poetry, Cultural, Picture Books

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Alice Schertle has written more than 40 books, mostly for children. A mother and former elementary school teacher, Ms. Schertle is a graduate of the University of Southern California. Many of her most famous works are poetic in nature, though she writes about a wide variety of topics.

Reviews

[Kate Chambers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story of human civilization from beginning years in Africa to the modern developments of the present. Each page contains only a few lines of prose, paired with beautiful collages, but this book says so much about how far we have come. The reading level and appropriateness could work in an elementary school but I could also see this working in a middle school. The artwork in this book is so complex that I would love to use this book in a visual literacy lesson to talk about the impact of different images paired with the pared down text. This book seems to do a great job of representing many types of people and cultures with respect to the part each has played in our collective human history. I would definitely recommend this book!

[martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

My 6-year-old has reached the age of burgeoning philosopher, wondering about the why and how of existence and life and how we all got here. Big questions to try to answer at bedtime.

Maybe there are books that can help, thought I, in extremely predictable fashion, and went to the library.

To my pleasant surprise, she loved this one and so do I. It's essentially a free verse poem walking the reader through all of human history, starting in a valley in Africa. And done in first person plural, which I'm always a sucker for.

It's definitely not for every kid, but I like the juxtaposition of spare narrative and thoughtfully-busy collage, the very zoomed out view of the world, the way the text is by turns pragmatic and poetic, the almost melancholic ending. It does what I wanted, to an extent: contextualizes that feeling of how strange it is to be anything at all. (Not me quoting Neutral Milk Hotel in a review of a picture book...)

A snippet:

until we came to the sea
and that stopped us

So we built boats
and made sails to catch the wind
and were lost on the vastness of the sea

until we found another place       and another

Here and there we stopped to build a house
and plant a seed and make a fish hook and a water jug
and to die       and be born

(I'll admit it; I am also a known sucker for a caesura.)

[Sean Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

The multimedia art complements the poetry of the words and will prompt children into thinking about the origin of the species in an "outside the box" way.

[Andrew K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't understand the low ratings; this is a beautiful, brilliant way to tell the story of human history. Every kid I've read this book to has a ton of curious questions.

[NS Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book, We, by Alice Schertle is a unique story about human development. It begins millions of years ago in African and describes how the earth was slowly formed. It talks about evolution and how we changed over the course of time. It displays all of the unique differences among cultures through pictures but ties them together through words.It celebrates the progress we have made as humans.

I found the book very interesting. I enjoyed it but I'm not sure if it would be appropriate to talk about in school unless you were discussing evolution. If you were discussing the different view points of how humans came about on this planet, this book would be a great way to describe evolution to students. The most powerful part of this book was it's illustrations. Each page focused on a different theme or event that has taken place among the human race. For example, on one page it describes the different ways humans have contributed to the arts. It then displays pictures from various cultures around the world to illustrate how everyone helped change the arts. I think this book would be apprpriate for older students, grades 6-12.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book written in poetic free verse that explores the journey of mankind from initial birth in Africa million of years to the present.