About the Holiday
Following two years of outreach for inclusion by the Culbreath family, the I’m Just Me Movement became an official nonprofit organization in 2015. The organization was founded on the concept that diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It promotes an understanding that every person is unique, recognizes our individual differences, and celebrates the rich scope of diversity contained within each individual. The I’m Just Me organization offers schools, businesses, and other venues a variety of programs, including a team-building I’m Just Me Workshop, a Live Life Forward program, indivisible and group mentoring, and Project Positive, a student-led initiative creating kinder school cultures through peer leadership, inclusion, and positive change. To learn more, visit imjustmemovement.org.
Thank you to Bloomsbury Children’s Books for sending me this book!
Some Body, Every Body!
By Roz MacLean
Drawn into Roz MacLean’s uplifting, body-positive book by brilliant rays of color, readers enter a world—our world—of people interacting in various ways with family, strangers, and friends or simply enjoying the wonders of life on their own. Across her pages, MacLean merges short couplets describing different body types, abilities, and disabilities with vivid imagery that captures a plethora of everyday activities undertaken not only by “some bodies” but by “every body.” MacLean begins with four common descriptors: “Some bodies are big. Some bodies are small.” (demonstrated with a dad sitting next to his toddler), and “Some bodies are short. Some bodies are tall.” (depicting a very tall grocery clerk handing down a product from a high shelf to an older gentleman using a motorized shopping cart).
MacLean next takes readers to the beach, where “some bodies are round. / Some bodies are straight. / Some bodies are wavy. / All bodies are great!” then on to a pool, playground, park, rock concert, wheelchair basketball game, and birthday party. In each place, readers meet adults or children using various aids, including wheelchairs, canes, adaptive swings, mobility aids, hearing aids, prosthetics (or none), and a G-tube. Among her characters, MacLean also celebrates diverse skin tones, including albinism and vitiligo; those who relish hugs and those who prefer more distance; different hairstyles and head coverings; varieties of exercise; and many more highlighted throughout the pages.
While MacLean pays tribute to personal variations throughout her story, she also intrinsically highlights our similarities. Her welcoming and vibrant illustrations remind us that we all play, eat, sleep, wear clothes, love, and engage in a myriad of other activities that bring us together. In closing, MacLean offers an invitation to reassuring self-love and togetherness: ” I love my body. Do you love yours too? I love that my body / lets me be here with you!”
Roz MacLean’s jaunty storytelling is happily inspiring, stirring an appreciation for people’s contributions and struggles, especially in this day of social media’s hyper-focus on appearance. Adults and children will be moved by MacLean’s embrace of all bodies, finding it comforting and reassuring. Reinforcing these sentiments is MacLean’s glorious color scheme that leans into sunny days, the warmth of spring and summer, and energizing patterns that make our world more interesting.
A superb story of social and self-awareness and acceptance, Roz MacLean’s Some Body, Every Body! is a must for all library, classroom, and home collections.
Ages 3 – 8
Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2026 | ISBN 978-1547618880
About the Author
Roz MacLean is an award-winning Canadian illustrator and children’s writer. Her books include Some Body, Every Body!; More Than Words; Together, a Forest; and Do You Know the Dark? She especially loves making art about themes that are important to her, like exploring emotions and diverse ways of being in the world. Visit her at rozmaclean.com.
You can purchase Some Body, Every Body! from these booksellers
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop
Picture Book Review
