We're Different, We're the Same

October 12, 1992
Jim Henson's Sesame Street Muppets cavort cheerfully with people of all sizes, shapes and ethnicities in this rather humdrum effort to show the ways in which all people are the same, despite obvious physical differences. On alternate spreads, drawings imitating photos zero in on variations on noses, hair, mouths, skin, eyes and bodies, all ``different'' from one another. A turn of the page reveals all of the owners of these body parts interacting, alongside several lines of sing-song verse explaining how our noses, hair, etc., are ``the same.'' Some of the rhymes are silly or forced; part of the explanation of skin reads: ``Muscles and bones are wrapped inside it. / We all have blood and skin to hide it!'' Even the affable Sesame Street gang can't enliven this mundane treatment of a significant subject. Ages 4-8.