If all the earth...

Nature has always been a source of inspiration for Mennonite children’s author Aimee Reid.

Several years ago, she took her dog for a walk while camping at Valens Lake Conservation Area in Hamilton, Ontario. She returned with a phrase in her mind:
 If all the earth were forests green and you were the nest. 

“I wrote it down because I had the inkling that this might be the beginning of something,” says Reid, who attends Hamilton Mennonite in Hamilton, Ontario.

What came next for Reid were images of animals. She pondered the different ways that various species care for their young and began searching for parallels between animal parents and human parents.  

As an animal lover—she describes her dog, Sadie, as her writing companion—this was the fun part for Reid.  

“Mountain goats will often stay a little bit below their young, so that if they stumble, they’re there for them,” she says. “Emperor penguin dads keep their chicks in a little pouch by their feet.”

Reid would eventually compile these and other examples into A World of Love (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2024) with illustrations from Christopher Lyles. 

Through short lines of text and tender brushstrokes of pinks, greens and blues, the book invites young readers to pastures, jungles and oceans to explore the vastness of unconditional love.

“That sense of being known and loved thoroughly is something I hope children will experience somehow through reading the book,” says Reid, who also found inspiration in Psalm 139.  

In her writing process, Reid tries to put herself in the mindset of a child. Writing for children means working with an economy of words, which in turn means finding ways to distill the story without losing its message. 

But her book is also for adults. At a large festival, a woman approached Reid with tears in her eyes and told her that she had never experienced such love from a book. 

“I was really moved by that, and I hope that in some way she was sensing God’s universal love for us.” Reid says, “Mr. Rogers used to pray, ‘Let some words that I say be yours.’ That’s a prayer that really resonates with me as I do my work.”

Writing in this genre also means connecting with her experiences as a mother. Reid has three children aged 22, 19 and 17. They are the first readers of her drafts and have become adept at highlighting the parts that they like and the parts that need to be developed.

She has published five other children’s books, including The Story of Mr. Rogers and His Neighborhood. 

Just as she wants her own children to know that they are loved, they are valued, they are wanted and they have a special place in the world, Reid wants all children who read her work to draw the same understanding. The book concludes: “If all the earth and for all time, when near or when apart, I’ll cherish you, my child, my child, for you are in my heart.”