Education and entertainment in a well-drawn, appealing first look into a major world religion.
A young girl walks through a vivid, vibrant world of Hindu gods in this illustrated debut children’s book.
As Radhika sits underneath her favorite tree, she starts to gaze upward, admiring the winged seeds of the tree that flutter down and through the wind. As she watches each seed get carried away or simply fall to the ground, she is struck with a question: Why doesn’t every single seed produced by a tree become a tree itself? This line of questioning begins her journey through a rich parable featuring Hindu gods. On the journey, Radhika learns of the elements of the world—space, air, fire, water and earth—and of the gods that represent these elements. Visiting Ganesha, Agni, Proothvi, Durga and many more, Radhika begins to understand the act of being grateful, the dichotomy and necessity of being both happy and sad, and how life is shaped by awe, grace, respect and love. Annan’s charming debut features colorful illustrations that are bright and inviting, as well as engaging, informational prose that should be easy for children to understand—a difficult line to walk with such a complicated subject. At the end of the work, Radhika is bursting with knowledge and ready to go forth and apply all that she’s learned, which should carry over into the lives of interested readers. All in all, the work offers a commendable introduction to the world of Hindu gods and the religion’s main tenets, especially for children who practice other doctrines.
Education and entertainment in a well-drawn, appealing first look into a major world religion.Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1490424330
Page Count: 44
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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