Where We Come From

Where We Come From is the collaborative effort of four authors, all with very different backgrounds. The book tells young readers that we all come from stardust, ancient elements, and cells dating back billions of years ago. As humans inhabited the Earth over time and spread out, different cultures were created. In this book, each author shares his or her background, including their ancestral history and current living status. Each page has words and a piece of an author’s story. What I found a little confusing is that the authors did not use their names on each page, and the stories changed back and forth between authors. It would have been nice to have had the stories either labeled by the authors on each page or each author’s story told individually in a section. The storytelling was very choppy and difficult to follow.

The illustrations by Dion MBD are vivid and beautiful. I really loved his use of mixed media to create both specific and defined facial features and expressions for the people, yet a soft background for the settings.