A useful, relatable introduction to mindfulness for kids.
In this illustrated children’s book, an anxious boy gets help from a friend who teaches him mindfulness practice.
Fourth-graders Mikey, a white boy, and Nia, a black girl, are neighbors and best friends, but they have different approaches to life’s problems. Mikey is a worrier, always afraid something bad will happen, and this keeps him indoors and lonely. He distracts himself by playing on his electronic tablet, but he often gets so absorbed that he doesn’t hear his mother call him for dinner, which annoys her. Nia, on the other hand, loves to live in the moment: “She calls this ‘being mindful,’ and it is her superpower!” notes the third-person narrator. After noticing that Mikey is unhappy, she resolves to help him by teaching him about mindfulness and how to practice it himself. He agrees to give it a try, and Nia takes him through the process, step by step. He learns that he can handle his feelings, make better choices, and focus, and he’s more attentive to his mother, pleasing them both. Mikey resolves to practice his new “superpower” regularly, which makes him happier and keeps him out of trouble. A note to parents and teachers explains how to use the book with kids, offering more background, questions to consider, and examples of mindfulness practice. In her debut, Dolinar, a psychotherapist, explains in clear, simple language how readers can slow down and pay attention to the present. (The book doesn’t address the issue of kids with more serious attention-related issues, such as ADHD, but clinical studies have shown mindfulness training can be effective in such cases.) The author shows what to do when intrusive thoughts arise, as they will: “Always look and take notice of them, but don’t hang on to them for long.” Introducing the subject through a friend rather than a parent, teacher, or therapist is a nice touch that may help readers feel more comfortable with a new technique. Barinova’s (The Story of Emi, 2018, etc.) images are cartoonlike—simple lines, oversized heads—and include appealing details and a calming, peach-and-light-blue color palette.
A useful, relatable introduction to mindfulness for kids.Pub Date: May 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5255-3611-3
Page Count: 44
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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