The Children’s Bookshelf –Buddhist Stories

Last week I shared several books set in ancient India. The Story of the World also spends some time on the life of Buddha and Buddhist beliefs, and we read several good books to supplement the stories.

We enjoyed other books of Demi before – this is one of the illustrators that Anna is able to identify right away due to her very distinctive style. I didn’t know before reading this book that she is a Buddhist, and she certainly invested a lot of love and energy into both the story telling the life journey of Buddha and the illustrations. The book also gives a short summary of Buddhist beliefs – it would be interestingly to compare and contrast them with Ten Commandments and Christian teachings when Anna is older.\

Buddhist Tales from Barefoot Books is an excellent collection of stories from different cultures. Each story is set in a different country (a couple of stories is set in imaginary lands) and I found them refreshingly different. Each story is also followed by a short parable. Parables went whoosh over my daughter’s head, but she really enjoyed the tales and their illustrations. I would recommend the book to older kids due to the length of the stories, but adults will enjoy them as well.

The third book we read was also by Demi – Buddha Stories. The stories themselves are short and lovely, and I especially liked the short “punch line” in the end. Interestingly, a couple of the stories with slight variations, were covered in Marcia Williams’ Tales from Ancient India book, and Anna was pleased to repeat her favorites. But both of us didn’t care for gold on black format both for text and illustrations, lack of contrast makes it pretty hard on the eyes. Still, this book is probably most appropriate for younger kids because the stories are not too long.

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