I SEE THE SUN IN MYANMAR/BURMA

A quietly informative book takes readers through one idealized day in a Burmese village, produced with a text in English and the gracefully written Burmese language.

Aye Aye narrates the simple text. The young girl describes her morning routine and then accompanies her nurse mother to the hospital; there is no school today. Her brother goes to fish with his father, demonstrating gender-specific activities. It’s too bad school is not included, as a look at it might have made the text a bit more nuanced. Burma (officially named Myanmar in 1989, hence the two names) was isolated from 1962 until 2010, when its military government began allowing more freedoms. This is explained in an afterword, written for an older audience. A picture of the famous political figure, Aung San Suu Kyi, appears on the Buddhist wall altar and is described only in the afterword. Not a political book, the emphasis is on the everyday similarities of children’s lives the world over, albeit with a focus on specific cultural traditions, here Theravada Buddhism, and the concept of metta, loving-kindness. Detailed collages of paper, woven straw, photographs and other materials highlight the differences between urban and rural life.

Interested teachers and parents will want to use this with young children as one way to introduce children to a way of life that has compassion at its heart.