Britta Teckentrup presents a wide, expansive world in Under the Same Sky. All the many species--lions, penguins, wolves, domestic cats--are connected by "the same love," "the same games" and "the same songs." Even forest bears and tropic flamingos "face the same storms" only to "dream the same dreams... together."
Teckentrup's words provide a comforting, calming message of interconnectedness: despite how different we look, how diverse our environments, how different our experiences, there are certain shared, basic traits that bind us together. She visually manifests the connections, using a clever pattern of peek-through cutouts that links two double-page spreads together. The deers dashing through a mountainous range, for example, "play the same games" as the rabbits in a flowering meadow--the two scenes conjoined by a cutout cloud. Warmly inviting, Teckentrup's picture book becomes a wishful hope for world peace. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon