Readers will fall easily into the rhythm of visits to Stillwater and his storytelling sessions, and many more will fall in love with the panda, whose shape and size offer the children many opportunities for cuddling. Stillwater helps Michael prepare for his spelling bee while teaching the neighborhood children the importance of perspective. In the last, a monk learns how to stop brooding and live in the present. In the next, a wise farmer demonstrates that good luck can quickly turn to bad luck and back again (a tale Ed Young also retold in The Lost Horse). In the first, Stillwater tells Addy about his Uncle Ry, who disarms a robber by treating him like a guest (older readers will pick up from the closing author's note that 'Uncle Ry' is shorthand for the Zen hermit Ryokan Taigu). The panda chooses an appropriate Zen fable for each child, illustrated with rough-edged, Chinese-style brush-and-ink paintings on duotone pages, to play up the story-within-a-story structure. The story of three children meeting Stillwater, a peaceful panda, is fresh and fun. By Whitney Stewart Author Who is Whitney Why did Whitney love this book I adore this picture book and return to it often, to read to myself or to share with children. Speaking 'with a slight panda accent,' he introduces himself as Stillwater, and charms Addy and Michael though Karl, the youngest, is still 'shy around bears he know.' Each day one of the children goes to visit Stillwater, revealing something of him- or herself. Muth From the list on mindfulness for young children. Three siblings befriend a giant panda when his red umbrella blows into their yard. He frames the trio of tales within the context of a suburban household.

Muth, who has retold traditional stories such as Stone Soup and Tolstoy's The Three Questions, and played up their spiritual elements with his elegant watercolors, here introduces three Zen stories from Japan.

Zen shorts book