All God’s Crit­ters is a delight­ful book that sings out its mes­sage loud and clear. Writ­ten by folksinger/​song writer Bill Staines and whim­si­cal­ly illus­trat­ed by Kadir Nel­son, the words of the song near­ly float right off the page. Chil­dren and adults will be tap­ping their feet to the catchy beat as the tune spins ​’round in their heads. On the sur­face, the sto­ry intro­duces read­ers to the ani­mals in the choir. Each ani­mal sings in its own spe­cial way. ​“Some sing low, some sing high­er, some sing out on the tele­phone wire, and some just clap their hands.” Every crit­ter belongs in the choir, no mat­ter how dif­fer­ent it might be. But the story’s mes­sage flows past the sim­ple idea that every ani­mal gets to be in the choir. It pul­sates beyond the com­fort­ing infer­ence that no mat­ter what drum a child beats to, s/​he is still a val­ued mem­ber of the group, whether it is a choir, a class­room or the whole world. The impor­tance of the book is revealed in its title and rein­forced in each refrain: ​“All God’s crit­ters got a place…” because it’s God’s choir. It’s a world filled with God’s cre­ations and every­one is impor­tant to the group. So sit back and sing along, you and your child will enjoy this song and the sto­ry for a long, long time. Ages 3 – 6.