Two months prior to its release, Daniel Kraus of The Booklist wrote: "Scanlon uses a pleasing rhythm to move from normal-life specifics all the way to more existential concepts....

"[1] Upon its publication, The Horn Book Magazine's Jennifer M. Brabander said, "Scanlon's text has a child-friendly simplicity reminiscent of Margaret Wise Brown around which Frazee's illustrations build a satisfying narrative.... All the World will win audiences with a sensibility both timeless and thoroughly modern.

"[2] Writing in The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Deborah Stevenson praised Frazee's work and called the story "a moving and accessible celebration of the poetry of ordinary human life".

Beautifully illustrated by Maria Frazee, who won a Caldecott Honor this year for A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, it's the kind of book that will be pulled off the shelf at bedtime over and over again."

[7] A six-minute animated short film based on the book,[8] narrated by Joanne Woodward[8] and directed by Galen Fott,[9] was released by Weston Woods Studios in 2011.