They All Saw It

Margaret Wise Brown & Ylla

The sea lion saw it first.

The deer saw it from the depths of the forest.

When the little cat saw it he jumped in the air.

The little dog wondered.

The bunnies wiggled their noses.

The horses saw it and two giraffes saw it

What in the world was it?

 

They All Saw It is a suspenseful book of whimsical photographs and artfully designed text.

A young reader flips through photos of various animals that have reacted to something they have seen, animals alive with attitudes and expressions, jumping hesitating, wondering, bellowing. For they all saw it (except the polar bear who was asleep). But the reader only discovers at the end what it was…

They All Saw It represents a selection of Austrian-born photographer Ylla‘s best studies, taken over a period of eleven years. The book was first published in 1944 in United States as the first of four created in collaboration with Margaret Wise Brown. With a desire to better identify with wild animals, see the world through their eyes and explore their thoughts and feelings as best she could, Ylla embarked on a series for children, photographing animal adventures with a storyline.

This endeavor introduced a whole new world of animal photography. To realize this, Ylla periodically lived with wild animals, one at a time, to photograph ‘play dates’ she arranged with different species.