All of a kind

These tiny treasures with big souls make up only a fraction of all the life that is living around us. They are part of an invisible net connecting us all–on a place we call Earth.

Pablo Salvaje

(Originally published Summer 2019)

Maybe it’s because I just finished writing a dissertation (and was required to cite every thought, especially the squishy ones), but I am immensely jealous of a writer who can just say “Your soul is the secret that unites all species,” as Pablo Salvaje does in his exquisite book of prints and prose, Animalkind.

Each page of this “picture book” contains beautiful prints of beings–hummingbirds, giraffes, flamingos, polar bears moving through, past, into and out of the pages. They are at once graphic, textured, romantic, serious, and playful. Like a true bestiary, each page stands on its own but weaves itself into the next, creating a meaningful ecology. A penguin impossibly and seamlessly flows into a zebra. Hummingbirds vibrate above a horizon of whales.

I bought the book to share with my niece’s 5-year old daughter, but I have yet to part with it, as I am still enjoying all the images. So, I cannot say how a child would respond to the text. The one-page philosophical musings on topics like “Transformation,” “Rhythms,” and “Survival,” are definitely not the stuff of children’s books. But, they are succinct and poetically communicate deep topics about our relations to life–exactly what I would want to tell a child. No citations required, straight from the heart.