Thank You, Everything - by Icinori (Hardcover)

About the Book

"What starts as a series of "thank yous" addressed to common objects that inhabit our daily lives gradually builds into a fantastic journey across landscapes, seasons, and inner discoveries."--

Book Synopsis

This magnificent new title from Icinori starts as a word book of things to be thankful for and turns into a thrilling adventure story along the way

A BookPage Best Picture Book of 2024!
A 2025 Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year, Outstanding Merit!
One of 100 Scope Notes's Most Astonishingly Unconventional Books of 2024!
One of Maria Popova's Marginalian Favorites of 2024!

What starts as a series of "thank yous" addressed to common objects that inhabit our daily lives gradually builds into a fantastic journey across landscapes, seasons, and inner discoveries.

Deceptively simple, each page acknowledges the contributions of a different object (spoon, rock, beasts) or concept (summer, slumber, surprise), with each image building on the next to create a dazzling narrative that invites readers to puzzle and play, explore and discover, appreciate and marvel.

Aaron Becker's Journey meets Carter Higgins's Circle Under Berry in this visual tour de force and invitation to look at the world with new eyes.

Review Quotes

A Marginalian Favorite of 2024! "An illustrated love letter to the world... It is good, every once in a while, to let ourselves be stupefied by gratitude, to cast upon ourselves a spell against indifference by moving through the world with an inner bow at every littlest thing that prevailed over the odds of otherwise in order to exist... Icinori offers a vibrant invitation to this countercultural way of seeing in Thank You, Everything--a meditative yet exuberant journey through the world within and the world without... The destination, rather than a place, is a state of being--the recompense of paying everything in our path the gratitude and reverence it is due for merely existing. For we forget, too, that dignity--this deepest reverence for being--is not something we can ever have for ourselves unless we accord it to everything and everyone else."--Maria Popova "The Marginalian"

A Parade Best New Book of the Week! "In this meditative, lovely picture book, author and illustrator Icinori floats readers through all the things we can be grateful about. Filled with bold, bright and simple graphics, it travels through a day, thanking everything from the alarm clock (I suppose) to the bed (sure!) to the sink and the glass holding the water from the sink. It's simple, yes, but the images are so smile-inducing and alive with pleasure, the text so disarming, you might just find this a good for the adults and teens in your life as much as the kids."-- "Parade"

Featured in the New York Times Book Review! "This coffee-table-worthy picture book is a catalog of wonders from which children can create their own narratives."-- "New York Times"

One of Betsy Bird's Caldenotts of 2024! "Supremely lovely, this is the kind of book a kid could pore over for long periods of time, immersed in this beautiful world. How else could I possibly conclude this write-up, except to say, thank you, Icinori!"--Betsy Bird "A Fuse #8 Production (A School Library Journal blog)"

STARRED REVIEW! ★ "Paired with simple text made up of brief 'thank you' sentences, the story unfolds through the elegant, textured images... This is a tale that begs readers to linger and wonder about what it means to be grateful... A limited but vivid palette of primary colors simultaneously soothes with its blues and energizes with its red and yellows, creating an aesthetically pleasing, thought-provoking, and engaging experience. A whimsical, enriching, and deeply rewarding adventure in gratitude."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

STARRED REVIEW! ★ "Striking, stylish illustrations distinguish an epic read from creative team Icinori. Crisp-edged, silkscreen-like images in a palette of muted red, faded gold, and deep turquoise give the pages the look of vintage advertisements... The ambitious, world-girdling expedition... recasts exploration in an unexpected language."-- "Publishers Weekly"

STARRED REVIEW! ★ "Told with minimal prose, Thank You, Everything opens up the world to readers in a multitude of fascinating ways, leading them on a grand adventure. Icinori use a bold yet limited color palette to create wildly stylized, dynamic illustrations. The pacing is perfect, prompting readers to appreciate small details (a bath towel, a caterpillar) while also admiring big, beautiful landscapes (a bustling city, a dark forest lit by a full moon). The narrative, translated from French by Emilie Robert Wong, is equally distinctive... This soothing yet exciting blend of art and prose will encourage young imaginations to soar. A delightful book filled with wonder and gratitude, feelings that will linger with readers."-- "BookPage"

STARRED REVIEW! ★ "What starts out feeling like a mature version of Goodnight Moon, with objects being thanked rather than told goodnight, quickly transforms into a mysterious, sprawling adventure... The vocabulary creates images just as the illustrations do, with expressive phrases like 'thank you, cacophony' and 'thank you, caution.' ... As an artistic and writing exercise, readers must consider, what makes an impact in life? What experiences matter? The intricately patterned illustrations are richly textured and add depth to the spare text. This long-form picture book is unique, deceptively simple, and well worth exploring."-- "Booklist"

"A child sets out on a fantastical journey of gratitude in this engrossing picture book. The illustrations defy characterization, with elements of geometric abstraction, neo-Impressionism, and linocut techniques all layered together in a limited palette of blue, red, and yellow... Invites children to explore the world around them with new appreciation for the extraordinary and the everyday."-- "Foreword Reviews"

"I'm awed by books that tell powerful stories with very limited text. Thank You, Everything is a nearly wordless picture book that begins like a list of simple gratitudes, but readers will soon realize that the illustrations are telling a bigger story--an adventure story, even, about a trek out of the house ('Thank you, door'), through a jungle full of creatures ('Thank you, caution') and up into the sky ('Thank you, hot-air balloon'). Kids and adults will love searching through the eye-catching artwork to catch new story details with every reading."--Caroline Carlson "LitHub"

"Primary colors are layered in a retro silk-screen look to capture the adventure... Scenes in the jungle have nocturnal animals in orange and yellow glowing against the shadowy blue trees and the black sky. Fine lines capture ripples in the ocean, mist in the shower, and the texture of walls and floors. Despite the simple and repetitive sentence structure, rich vocabulary is woven into the text. Words like tempest, cacophony, horizon, and cavern offer chances for discussion. So too, does the story itself. Is this a real journey using airplanes and buses, or an imaginary trip inspired by the map in the surprise package? VERDICT: This journey away from home and back again will captivate readers with the imaginative and detailed illustrations. Expect noise story hours, then transition to quiet words of appreciation."-- "School Library Journal"

"What does it mean to be grateful, and which objects deserve our appreciation? In this deceptively simple tale, a child give thanks to the everyday things we take for granted. Amid these straightforward utterances, a soft, clever narrative emerges."-- "Washington Independent Review of Books"

One of 100 Scope Notes's Most Astonishingly Unconventional Books of 2024! "The text begins with simple thank you statements, but it soon becomes apparent that these images are building on each other and an adventure is taking shape. Visually stunning and open to interpretation, as a good unconventional book should be."--Travis Jonker "100 Scope Notes (A School Library Journal blog)"

About the Author

Icinori is an experimental design and illustration duo, made up of couple Mayumi Otero and Raphael Urwiller. Designers, visual artists, and editors, they concoct a wide range of projects together, spanning illustration, graphic design, exhibitions, publishing, and teaching. They have published several artists' books and children's books, including Et Puis, which was selected as an honor book in the fiction category of the 2019 Bologna Ragazzi Awards, and have contributed art to the New York Times, Wired, and Forbes Magazine. Growing up in a French-Chinese American family, Emilie Robert Wong attended school in the French national education system before studying comparative literature and neuroscience at Harvard College. She is an associate editor at Enchanted Lion, as well as the co-translator, with Karin Snelson, of You Can't Kill Snow White (shortlisted for the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative's Translated YA Book Prize) and At the Drop of a Cat (a Kirkus Best Book of 2023 and a NYPL Best Children's Book of 2023).