San Franciscan Daniel Handler, also known as Lemony Snicket, reviewed several children’s books in a New York Times piece not too long ago, including Zen Ties, writer-illustrator Jon J. Muth’s sequel to his Caldecott winner, Zen Shorts. Handler is allergic to preachy moralisms of the sort often smuggled into children’s so-called spiritual books (and dissed in this blog on a few occasions), and while overall he finds Muth’s new book undercompelling, his thoughts on how it goes wrong are compelling. (Muth comes to writing from his background in graphics, however, and Handler heartily approves his visuals.)

Both Muth books have been widely and appreciatively reviewed by bloggers. A quick perusal of the blogosphere indicates one obvious reason why: spiritual books for children provide busy parent readers with spiritual sustenance as well.

Many children have deep spiritual experiences that adults may not know how to validate (or even, sometimes, acknowledge in themselves). Books can give children a sense that their liminal, fragile, and ignored-by-most-grownups experiences are worthy and precious. I asked Whitney Stewart, author of the picture book biography Becoming Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha, to comment on this topic:

“I have a great deal to say on the subject of adults ignoring the ‘spiritual’ experiences of children. When I was fourteen, I took a rafting trip with my best friend and her older siblings. We hit a rough patch of white water and the raft flipped. I was on the bow and I got trapped under the raft and in some tangled branches. I started running out of air and panicked for a period. Then suddenly my internal voice said, ‘Oh this is just death,’ and I relaxed completely. I ‘saw’ scenes from my whole life as if in one frame of a movie, and I felt bright light and deep peace. I stopped struggling. And I felt joy.“Then someone pulled me out of the water. I was choking, and I tried to talk about what had happened but no one was interested in listening. We had to portage the raft over rough riverbank.“This was one of several childhood experiences of something beyond myself that I have tried to understand. These ‘sensed’ experiences led me to Tibet in 1986 and into Tibetan Buddhism. I chose to meet and write about the Dalai Lama because I wanted to understand his view of universal consciousness.“I now have a strong urge to teach children how to listen to their inner wisdom and connect to universal wisdom as they understand it. To me this connection can happen at any time in any place if the child is ‘listening’ in a full body-mind-heart way. My newest book on meditation shows kids simple ways to make this connection.“I could talk forever on this subject. But this is a start.”

Thank you, Whitney, for your thoughtful perspective. For a preview of Whitney’s book on meditation, including instructions and illustrations to get you (kids and grownups) started, click here. PaperTigers welcomes readers’ book recommendations and comments on the topic of spiritual books for children–and other topics as well, as always. See Whitney’s blog here.

For all families, spiritual books are an important way to transmit values to children. In multicultural families, the need is particularly complex. On our own PaperTigers site, you’ll find reviews of All the Way to Lhasa, Shiva’s Fire, Sky Sweeper, and even Ruth Nason’s series of books, prepared for the U.K.’s Religious Education school program, on visiting spiritual centers of various faiths. You can also search PaperTigers for books with spiritual content.

Out on the web, the Quakers’ website offers an annotated list of books emphasizing love, forgiveness and hope across cultures and religious traditions. Penguin Books publishes a list of mostly Christian and Jewish titles, plus one book on the Ramayana. Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has written several books for children emphasizing kindness and other spiritual values; he’s published by Parallax Press. Nicole Harvey of the Asian Art Museum, where many multicultural San Franciscans turn for materials, recommends several widely available titles: Kindness: A Treasury of Buddhist Wisdom for Children and Parents, Ayat Jamilah: Beautiful Signs: A Treasury of Islamic Wisdom for Children and Parents, and Daughters Of The Desert: Stories Of Remarkable Women From Christian, Jewish, And Muslim Traditions.

That’s just a start! We’ll return to this important topic again with more resources and further perspectives.