Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Picture Book 21: Zen Shorts

Author: Jon J. Muth

Illustrator: Jon J. Muth

Genre: Picture Book

Subgenre: Religious Literature

Themes: kindness and charity, understanding self and others, changes and new experiences

Characters
~Primary: Stillwater
~Secondary: Addy, Michael, Carl

Awards:
~Caldecott Honor Book


Date of Publication: 2005


Publication Company: Scholastic, Inc.


Summary: When three children meet the panda bear Stillwater that moved into their neighborhood, they are all excited about learning more about him.  But what they learn from Stillwater is more important than what they learn about him. This wonderfully illustrated book combines an interesting background story with beautiful traditional tales about materialism, good and evil, and anger and frustration.


Recommendation: I really enjoyed this book. One of the things that I really found interesting in school was learning about world religions.  We always touched on major doctrinal points and important leaders, but we very rarely talked about their literature.  I think that this book is a wonderful example of traditional religious literature.









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