GOODNIGHT MONARCH

A youngster learns about meditation, the cycle of death and rebirth, and the impermanence of all things from a reptilian guru in this children’s book.

Monarch Asana, a preteen boy grieving the death of his Grandpa Harry, receives a mysterious poster as a bequest. Monarch falls asleep gazing at it and enters a dream in which Harry visits him as a talking chameleon who aptly symbolizes the message “You shouldn’t get too attached to the forms you see in the world because everything in existence is constantly changing its form.” Harry proceeds to impart other lessons about religion and the universe: that death is not the end, but “a nap that we take to prepare for life in a new body”; that the immortal soul persists as our essence as we reincarnate through many lives; and that the cycle of reincarnation will continue until we understand the puzzle of our mystical connection to God and the universe. Waking from his dream, Monarch discovers a letter from Harry telling him that there are more writings about the path to enlightenment stashed in cities around the world that he and his sister, Luna, can find in a kind of treasure hunt—if they can decipher the crucial clue hidden in the poster. Cottone, a professor of psychiatry at Stony Brook University, presents a simple, broad-brush primer on Hindu and Buddhist concepts and practices pitched at an elementary and middle school readership, complete with rudimentary meditation exercises—“Now, Monarch, as you breathe, I want you to count your breaths,” coaches Harry—and an appendix with more detailed techniques. The author’s limpid, straightforward prose manages to convey abstruse ideas in evocative terms, whether discussing spiritual metaphysics—“Just as it’s hard to follow changes in the wind without a kite to fly in it, without a physical body it’s hard to learn anything about your soul”—or the confusing mental churn they cause. (“Monarch was filled with conflicting emotions that were mixing inside of him like droplets of oil and vinegar in a bottle of salad dressing.”) Hoffman’s colorful drawings illustrate the luminous story. Kids who are curious about these doctrines will find the book an entertaining, easily digestible guide.

An intellectually rich yet down-to-earth introduction to Eastern religious and philosophical beliefs.