Footprints Across the Planet is a soft picture book on life and impact

Did you hear about the dinosaur footprints in Texas that were exposed during a drought? I love that story because A. I love all things dinosaur and B. It reminds us that there are extraordinary things that might be just beyond our eyesight. Maybe it’s something that takes a little effort or it could be the everyday things that we simply may not appreciate as much as it deserves. Footprints Across the Planet is a picture book by Jennifer Swanson. Swanson is an author who writes non-fiction books for children, with this one being on the picture end of the teeter-totter.

A picture book and illustrated book are cousins to an extent. The picture book has the pictures do a majority of the messaging, while the illustrated book has more words for those young readers to dive into, but also has pictures or illustrations to accompany the story. Footprints Across the Planet is a landscape picture book that’s jammed with large photographs of animals, the footprints that they leave behind, as well as us humans that inhabit Earth.

We’ve been across mountains, dove deep in the sea, walked on other planets, have feet of all sort, and different things that cover them to make those footprints easier to make. Some of these will last for millennia, like the ones recently found in Texas, whereas others will disappear within a couple of seconds.

Footprints Across the Planets also goes into metaphors, people are capable of great change, those who stand up for social wrongs or those who can’t represent themselves. What we use causes a footprint too, doesn’t it? That disposable plastic water bottle you used over the weekend now has a connection to you, despite the fact that it will outlive you by at least five times. That’s a heavy footprint indeed.

Likewise, the metaphors and animal footprints in Footprints Across the Planet could’ve added up to a heavy eco message, but that’s not the point of the book. This is a picture book that is aimed at young children through first grade. Those two-year-old kids will enjoy looking at the pictures in the book and having it read to them. Those pre-k kids will be able to read some of the words themselves and still enjoy looking at the variety of photographs.

Everyone will enjoy the way that Footprints Across the Planet makes you think. This is not the academic thinking of studying a textbook, nor does it attempt to riddle you with eco guilt. This is the real-time thinking of observing, connecting the dots, and realizing that what you do, even as a toddler or three-year-old child, makes a mark and is remarkable. Those folks who want to dig into a digital footprint or carbon footprint will enjoy the book too. If you’re an adult and don’t know much about anything eco there’s a short overview of eight of the images that were highlighted in the book.

Footprints Across the Planet is a picture book for the very young elementary school set to those pre-k and younger kids. Its shape will encourage those young ages to sit down and actually look at the book. It will invite them to notice the different colors in the frog’s foot, the curling snow drifts in the mountains, and the disparity in how shoes around the world are represented. The end of the book simply asks the reader what kind of mark they’d like to leave behind. The old camping adage is appropriate here because it’s best to leave it as good, or better than when you arrived.

Footprints Across the Planet is by Jennifer Swanson and available on Reycraft Books.

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