It fills a niche for Buddhist families, but it’s not really for the uninitiated.
What better way to start off a good night’s sleep than with a nugget of ancient wisdom?
Scottish Buddhist monk Nagaraja presents a collection of 18 bedtime stories based on the Jakata Tales, folk tales featuring earlier incarnations of the Buddha. Each urges readers to “[r]elax, close your eyes, and imagine…” a specific scene or animal or person. This standard opening is followed by, “Do you want to know what happened? Then listen closely.” Each of the three-to-five-page tales is capped by a moral tied to a step on the Eightfold Noble Path, Buddha’s directives for overcoming suffering. A girl learns compassion when she’s magically made to feel the pain of a rabbit she’s injured. The tiny denizens of a desert willow learn their talents are important when they fend off larger animals by working together. The morals are succinct and instructive, but the tales are uneven; a few may inspire more questions about the bizarre actions of the characters than about the intended lessons. Meditation instructions appear at the close, along with a helpful index to issues and values from the tales. Brief explanations of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path and guidance on the book’s use round out the package, which is illustrated with big-eyed, bright, happy-looking animals and people.
It fills a niche for Buddhist families, but it’s not really for the uninitiated. (Short stories. 4-8)Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78028-514-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Watkins
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
A wonderfully illustrated story of family.
A girl chronicles her adoption journey in Wall’s picture book.
Young Priya and her sister, Ari, face severe hardships in India before living in an orphanage where kind “Aunties” help them find “a forever family.” When the White, fair-haired adoptive family arrives, the girls note that they “did not look like anyone in our village!” However, Priya notes that her new mom “stroked my hair and kissed my forehead like she had known me my whole life” and comments that “we share the same heart.” In their new home,the siblings try new foods and hobbies and are shocked by the family dog because “People in India have pet cows, not dogs!” Despite difficulties, including infections that require surgeries and medication, Priya and Ari are ultimately thrilled to be a part of a loving household, and they embrace Indian traditions while cultivating new memories. This book is a sweet tribute to one family’s adoption experience, and narrator Priya provides thoughtful, kid-friendly insights throughout. Families with adopted children will find them particularly relatable. Wall’s illustrations feature lovely watercolors that create vivid backgrounds and swirling skies. The work also features a patterned Indian artform called Rangoli, which uses sand and flower petals. A glossary defines Sanskrit terms used in the text.
A wonderfully illustrated story of family.Pub Date: March 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-09-835899-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A heartfelt, painful family saga, skillfully told by a survivor.
Essayist Handler debuts with a memoir of loving sibling bonds cruelly interrupted.
The author’s eight-year-old sister Susie died of leukemia in 1969, when Handler was ten. Their sister Sarah had been ill since infancy with Kostmann’s Syndrome, a bone-marrow disorder like leukemia, but much more rare; she died at age 27 in 1992. Yet Susie and Sarah were at her 1998 wedding, the author avers. They remain vividly present in memory, appearing in the waking reveries and sleeping dreams of their healthy sibling. The girls’ parents were liberal Yankee Jews transplanted to suburban Atlanta in the ’60s. They lived with their children on “a lush street where professors and doctors grew big gardens and tied bandannas around the necks of their Irish setters.” Dad, a crusading labor lawyer, was terrified by his daughters’ illnesses. He went a bit mad, was hospitalized, fled to the Far East and then returned for a divorce. (Perhaps, Handler muses, Dad was angry with her for having a future.) Mom pretended all was well, but the entire family was plunged into darkness by the deaths of two daughters. The author’s stark, lucid prose probes what those losses did to her parents and to her. Handler moved from Atlanta’s Coca-Cola society to the coke culture of Los Angeles. She maintained a journal and kept pertinent ephemera. In 2004-05, she obtained and pored over copious medical files on her sisters’ symptoms, medications and clinical trials. With a sure grasp of revelatory detail, the author recalls homely verities from a vanished life. Her memory piece is an elegy for her dead sisters, who are not quite lost as long as they live in her thoughts.
A heartfelt, painful family saga, skillfully told by a survivor.Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-58648-648-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
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