About This Book:
Discover namaste’s many meanings in a simple, lyrical text, paired with a charmingly detailed visual narrative about a little girl’s kindness.
Namaste calms your heart when things aren’t going right.
Namaste is saying “You matter.”
What is namaste? It’s found in a smile, a friendship, a celebration. It exists in silence; it can be said when you’re happy or when you’re feeling low. For one small girl in a bustling city, namaste (“I bow to you”) is all around her as she and her mother navigate a busy marketplace—and when she returns with a little plant and chooses to give it to an elderly neighbor, it can be seen in the caring bond between them. In a sweet, universal text, debut author Suma Subramaniam shines a light on a word with significance far beyond yoga class, while artist Sandhya Prabhat makes the concept of mindfulness come alive in delightful illustrations likely to draw children in again and again.
*Review Contributed By Karen Yingling, Staff Reviewer*
A Celebration of Thoughtfulness and Kindess
This is a great look at a pivotal cultural word, and while there are plenty of examples of how it functions, I would have liked to see a very short forward on what cultures use the word, and in what way. For young readers who already have “namaste” as part of their vocabular, this won’t be necessary, but readers who don’t know this might learn even more from the book!
It’s good to see a growing number of picture books extolling kindness and making cultural connections. Zhang’s Amy Wu and the Warm Welcome shows a girl befriending a classmate that doesn’t speak English well, and Michael’s Snoopy’s Book of Joy offers the same sort of exploration of gratitude, albeit from a slightly sillier perspective.
