A succinct, beautifully crafted documentation of the origin of Buddhism.
Before he was known as the Buddha—“the awakened one”—Prince Siddhartha lived a decadent life within protective palace walls, surrounded by abundance and sheltered from life’s inevitable cruelties.
Siddhartha becomes a man within the palace, marrying a wife and fathering a son. However, his curiosity about life outside the palace grows. When he finally travels outside, Siddhartha sees old age, sickness, and death for the first time, and he learns that these painful experiences are universal and unavoidable. This realization becomes the first noble truth of Buddhism, and it inspires Siddhartha to abandon his life of privilege to become a spiritual seeker. Through his meditations, Siddhartha becomes the Buddha. His teachings, such as the foundational “four noble truths,” spread worldwide and become known as Buddhism. This narrative manages to distill the life of one of the world’s most influential spiritual teachers into a slim illustrated narrative. Evocative of the traditional Tibetan Buddhist paintings known as thangkas, the soft watercolors grace the rather stoic narrative with an emotional quality as it depicts the subject’s transition from Prince Siddhartha to the Buddha. The tale is set in India, and the skin tones depicted are realistic and vary from peachy tan to deep brown. This picture book will serve families seeking to share their own Buddhist faith and practice with children as well as independent readers researching spiritual practices.
A succinct, beautifully crafted documentation of the origin of Buddhism. (Informational picture book. 6-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61180-629-8
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Bala Kids/Shambhala
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
A celebration of progressive Judaism and an inclusive primer on Jews making a difference in the world.
This wide-ranging collection of short biographies highlights 36 Jewish figures from around the globe and across centuries.
Explicitly pushing back against homogenous depictions of Jewish people, the authors demonstrate the ethnic, racial, and gender diversity of Jews. Each spread includes a brief biography paired with a stylized portrait reminiscent of those in Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo’s Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls (2016). A pull quote or sidebar accompanies each subject; sidebars include “Highlighting Jewish Paralympic Athletes,” “Jewish Stringed Music,” and “Ethiopian Jews in Israel.” Kleinrock and Pritchard’s roster of subjects makes a compelling case for the vastness and variety of Jewish experience—from a contemporary Ethiopian American teen to a 16th-century Portuguese philanthropist—while still allowing them to acknowledge better-known figures. The entry on Raquel Montoya-Lewis, an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court and an enrolled member of the Pueblo Isleta Indian tribe, discusses her mission to reimagine criminal justice for Indigenous people; the sidebar name-checks Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. The bios are organized around themes of Jewish principles such as Pikuach Nefesh (translated from the Hebrew as “to save a life”) and Adam Yachid (translated as the “unique value of every person”); each section includes an introduction to an organization that centers diverse Jewish experiences.
A celebration of progressive Judaism and an inclusive primer on Jews making a difference in the world. (resources) (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780063285712
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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