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It’s a new feature here in Whuffle-Land! My recent children’s book treasure hunting got me thinking about how much I totally love books and oh hey, maybe it would be fun to blog about them!

I’m going to start with my very favorite of the children’s books: The Mountains of Tibet by Mordicai Gerstein.

The book starts with a young boy in Tibet who loves kites. He grows up and eventually dies, and then is in the afterlife choosing his path for rebirth. Have I mentioned that my parents were total hippies and that I was raised as a Buddhist? Yeah, that. Anyhow. The little-boy-who-is-now-an-old-man gets to choose which galaxy he would like to live in, which planet he’s born on, which animal he wants to be, where he wants to live, and who he wants his parents to be.

In which the old man decides which animal he would like to be. Note the OCTOPUS! in the middle. I do so love a good octopus.

It’s very much an overview of the Tibetan concept of the “bardo” (the area between life and rebirth) for kids. And it’s gorgeous. I loved it when I was kid and I have a copy for Paulo that I inscribed on the day of his birth, thanking him for choosing us as his parents.

I’m oh so fond of this book as it’s a touching and beautiful introduction to Buddhism without being too preachy. It’s a whole lot easier to find children’s literature about Christianity (the whole “religion” section in Barnes & Noble being a selection of illustrated Bibles) and even Judaism than it is to find books about Buddhism – though there are a few other good ones out there. This one would be wonderful for any family to have, even if they weren’t Buddhists themselves, even if only for the illustrations. It’s a simple and beautiful story.

Deciding to be a person. This scan totally doesn’t do justice to the intricacy of the illustration.

If you would like to share your favorite children’s book with us, please contact me at sonja dot alves at gmail dot com and we’ll set something up for a guest post!