Media Review

Arpil, 2004

Spiritual Books for Children

Books on all aspects of spirituality are abundant. Traditional as well as more contemporary volumes in hardcover, paperback, and audiotape can be found in large and small bookstores and are fixtures on “bestseller” lists. A wide variety is offered for readers of all ages—as long as that age is adult.

For younger readers, conventional books explaining a single religion’s concept of God, and a large collection of Bible stories, constitute the majority of current inventory. The same proliferation of spiritual and, especially, New Thought or New Age books that have become so accessible to adult readers has been noticeably lacking on children’s shelves.

At least two authors seem to be trying to change that. Etan Boritzer’s series of “life concept” books and Maura D. Shaw’s spiritual biographies both present a multicultural approach to educating children in an entertaining way about the larger choices available in life. These books are richly illustrated and make for terrific bedtime reading, as well as being appropriate for older children to read by themselves.

What is God? What is love? What is death? What is beautiful?
These are the age-old questions, pondered by philo-sophers since the beginning of time. They are also the questions posed and answered in a series of beautifully-illustrated children’s books by Etan Boritzer.

What Is God? states, “You are asking a very, very big question… Everyone wants to know ‘What is God?’” The book goes on to say, “Maybe we can’t really talk about God because maybe we can’t see God,” and continues to discuss God by asking questions and explaining how various religions are different, and how they are the same.

What Is Love? sets forth different ways to say the word Love: “Amore, Lyubof, Aga’pi,” and asks, among other things, “Does Love have a taste? Does Love have a sound?” It talks a lot about feelings, including “that big inside rainbow feeling of Love.”

What Is Death? also begins and ends with the title question. In between, the book asks even more questions: “Have you ever had a friend or someone you love die?” “What happens to a person’s body when she or he dies?” and it discusses the beliefs of different religions about death.

What Is Beautiful? The latest book in the “What is…” series, What is Beautiful?, offers a myriad of contrasts between what is traditionally thought of as beautiful, i.e. beautiful music or the aroma of cookies in the oven, and the opposite, such as banging pots and pans and “a bad smell that makes us pinch our nose closed.”

“ How do we know what is really beautiful?” the book asks. “And who knows best what is really beautiful?” All of the books raise more questions than they answer, as philosophical discussions do. But these books, written for children age four and above, can be read for sheer enjoyment, or used to begin an interactive dialogue between parent and child.

Black Elk, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa. Amazing people. In fact, they are three of the “Ten Amazing People” in the children’s book Ten Amazing People: And How They Changed the World. Dorothy Day, Thich Nhat Hanh, Malcolm X, Albert Schweitzer, Janusz Korczak, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi are the others profiled.

Each personality is featured in a mini-biography, along with a chronology of "Important Events," a noteworthy quote ("In His/Her Own Words„), a "Fascinating Fact," and background information about the time and culture in which the subject lived.

A short glossary explains terms that are important in understanding the life of each individual. Children can read about the principle of mindfulness in the chapter about Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, and learn that Albert Schweitzer had to build his hospital in Africa with strong walls to keep snakes from crawling in.

The foreword to Ten Amazing People says that what these ten did "in order to uphold their beliefs, values, and principles keeps them still very much with us" as we "look to them as moral guides." A time-line inside the back cover of the book shows accomplishments of the ten people, along with related world events. The book is written for children age seven and over.

Ten Amazing People has been so well received since its publication in fall 200 2, that a series of "Spiritual Biographies for Young People" is now being published with expanded biographies on each of the ten figures featured in the first book.

Books on Mahatma Gandhi and Thich Nhat Hanh are already available; and the story of Dorothy Day, who started the newspaper and the movement "Catholic Worker," will be published this spring.

—Mary Templeton

Ten Amazing People
And How They Changed the World

by Maura D. Shaw
full-color illustrations by Stephen Marchesi
foreword by Dr. Robert Coles

Gandhi
India's Great Soul

by Maura D. Shaw
Illustrations by Stephen Marchesi

THICH NHAT HANH
Buddhism in Action

by Maura D. Shaw
Illustrations by Stephen Marchesi

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