So, this afternoon we finished reading our other two books, and my niece said, "Amy, I have a book we can read! It's called Zen Shorts--see, it's about a panda who wears shorts!"As entertaining as that story might have been, the story that Zen Shorts actually was was really lovely. The kids enjoyed the panda and his interactions with the kids, and they very much appreciated the pictures. It was a unique and peaceful story.
For me, what drops this from four stars to three is my niece only understood the moral delivered in one of Stillwater's short messages. This makes me wonder how accessible these lessons, told in this way, really are to kids in general. I did spend some time explaining the lessons to the girl, and while that helped, it wasn't enough. When I asked if she understood she said, "Yeah, I do now. But I don't get why this was called Zen Shorts. This had nothing to do with the panda's shorts."