Sam Winston, One & Everything, Walker Books Australia, November 2022, 48 pp., RRP $29.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781529509298
At first glance, this seems a simple picture book but looks can be deceiving. It is actually an extended metaphor for the loss of languages and the importance of preserving those we can. Once, we are told, there were many stories covering all sorts of topics such as sunsets and dogs. But One story decided it was the most important and gobbled up all the other stories. It becomes fatter and fatter – depicted on a double-page spread.
However, things were happening inside the stomach of the One story and questions were asked. Did it, for example, have stories in Ogham? It was somewhat disconcerted by these questions. How could it be sure what it had? Was it not perhaps every story?
The last double-page spread of the story itself asks a question of the reader “What will our next story be?”. Following that we turn the page to discover the author’s note that describes how language developed, how many exist and how many have been lost. He describes scripts and the many drawing surfaces once used to write down the scripts. Then the next pages provide an intriguing explanation of some of the characters (as in scripts) used in the book. The descriptions identify the many varied scripts, which peoples use (or used) and where they can be found in the book.
This provides a fascinating re-look at the book as the reader can go back and identify the scripts. They include ancient scripts such as Egyptian hieroglyphs (used in the page about dog stories) and recent inventions such as Adlam. These are so interesting; I so enjoyed finding out about the two schoolboys who invented Adlam and the Cherokee chief Sequoyah who first turned the oral language into a written script – and after whom the giant redwoods Sequoia are named. These descriptions are set out in columns with the name of the language or script at the top with an identification of the page on which it is to be found. Next in the book comes a map of the world identifying where the scripts used in the book come from and finally written examples of the fifty scripts used in One and Everything.
This is a remarkable book that celebrates story, language, their importance and the necessity of trying to preserve them. It is informative without being didactic, beautifully designed and appeals to a wide age range in different ways.
Reviewed by Margot Hillel
