I Am Buddhist (Religions of the World)

Quinn, Daniel P.

3.5

8 ratings by Goodreads

9780823923793: I Am Buddhist (Religions of the World)

ISBN 10: 0823923797 ISBN 13: 9780823923793

Publisher: Powerkids Pr, 2003

A young Chinese-American girl living in San Francisco with her family describes the principles and ceremonies of Buddhism

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From School Library Journal:

Gr 1-3--Religion is a difficult topic to slip into a formulaic mold for the primary grades and have it make sense. These books do not succeed. Both titles generalize or water down descriptive information, leaving little that distinguishes one faith from the other: "The Hindu religion is very old. It began in India....India is a large country with many different kinds of people." In Buddhist, readers learn that Buddha means "the enlightened one," but there are no stories of his life to elicit interest in anything that follows. The texts in both titles are heavily burdened with abstract terms printed in bold (the signal to check the glossary) and spelled phonetically. This technique adds to the distraction and the feeling that these are more vocabulary lessons than explanations of faith: "Sangha is our commitment (kom-MIT-mint) to our community, the people around us...we try to follow precepts (PREE-septs). (One being that)... we live a moral (MORE-ul) life." The full-color photographs and paintings on every other page depict monuments, gods, and modern-day people, but since each page contains a few sentences on a new subject, little is learned. Lois Raimondo's The Little Lama of Tibet (Scholastic, 1994) or Ted Lewin's Sacred River (Clarion, 1995) offer much more compelling looks at the subjects for the same age group.

Wendy Lukehart, Dauphin County Library, Harrisburg, PA

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