• Betty Bunny Loves Chocolate Cake by Michael Kaplan and decorated (paper) chocolate cake pieces

• Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin and learned a silly song about Pete the Cat’s shoes – the kids schooled me on a Pete the Cat dance that I did not know existed!

• A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip Stead (this beautifully illustrated book won the Caldecott Medal in 2011) and had a blast coloring some zoo themed coloring pages

• The Saturday before Valentine’s Day, we had too much fun decorating Valentines after we read Big Hugs, Little Hugs by Felicia Bond

**Be sure to check our Facebook page, Twitter feed and lemuriabooks.com for updates on story time and other Oz events as we move into spring!**

• Tuesday, March 6th,  Fancy Nancy illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser is coming to Lemuria to sign Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet at 4:00 pm – be sure to wear your fanciest outfit for this one!

William Gay was a long time friend of Lemuria. Three of his novels were picked for First Editions Club: Long Home (1999), Provinces of Night (2000), and Twilight (2006).

An original paperback, written by  Jean-Phillipp Sendker, has a title that has caused several people to stop in their tracks while browsing the bookstore. Set in Burma, you first meet Julia who is sitting in a tiny cafe after traveling many hours to find her father. At this cafe, she is approached by a man who knows her name, why she is there and her life story. Across the world from her home of New York City, it seems unbelievable that someone knows her. Sitting at the table, in the cafe, Julia is about to learn her life story.

Julia’s father, who was most recently a New York City lawyer, has vanished. Julia comes across a love letter from her father to a lady named Mi Mi. This letter is what leads Julia to the little village in Burma. The man who found  her in the cafe, a stranger, soon unravels the story of Tin Tin (Julia’s father) and Mi Mi.

What Julia knows of her father is this: he met and married her mother. Together they have Julia and her sister. Prior to all that, she learns that her father, as a young boy, was blind. He met a girl Mi Mi, who was unable to walk but fell in love with her because he was drawn to her.  Because he could not see, he was not drawn to her because of the way she looked;  it was because he could so clearly hear her heartbeat.

The love story between these two is unbelievable. Tin Tin would carry Mi Mi around on his back. She would be his eyes. She would direct him as he walked, described what he could not see and cared for him more than anyone else had. Tin Tin became Mi Mi’s feet. He was her form of transportation. He carried her on his back-every step of the way. Together these two saw the world unlike anyone else ever had.

You know the love story between these two ended in one way or another. After all, Julia’s father somehow ended up in New York City with sight, working as a lawyer and married to her mother.

While in Burma, Julia tracks her father down and finds out more on his reunion with Mi Mi. That, in itself, is worth the read.

I want to tell you about the collaboration that Lemuria and Millsaps College has started up.  Lemuria has always been involved with the Millsaps Arts & Lecture Series but now we have expanded to help out with the Friday Forum Series and the Visiting Writers Series.

Charles Baxter was the first author of the series and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him again.  He walked up with Suzanne Marrs, who promptly introduced us, but I reminded him we had met before.  He had done an event at Lemuria for his novel, Feast of Love, about 12 years ago.  He quickly smiled and remembered that he had done his reading in a bar. (For those who don’t know, Lemuria and Musiquarium worked together for Literary Brews.)

Students, Professors and Jacksonians began swarming in the auditorium and the program began.  Baxter read a unpublished story, “Loyalty,” and laughter ensued.  One suggestion that he made to writers in the crowd was “never throw anything away.”  He then told us that the first 8 pages of this story he had written 16 years ago and recently found it in a old notebook he was looking through.  I found that to be very interesting and passed it along to Ellis, an aspiring writer on staff at Lemuria.  You couldn’t have asked for a better Wednesday afternoon and I hope that you will start taking advantage of these great programs.

All of these events are open to the public, some are free and some are ticketed events. They are all fantastic and there are a lot of people working together to bring them to you.

by Jack Kornfield

(Shambhala, 2011)

Dharma is the nature of things, including the nature of our mental lives and the world we live in. Dharma is the “great norm” underlying our world. The teachings of the Buddha are recognized as Dharma. Dharma is the manifestation of reality through the norms of behavior and ethical rules. Dharma includes mental content, objects of thoughts and reflections of a thing in the human mind.

For me I sum up Dharma as simply trying to live with truth in reality, and this concept drew me to Jack’s new book.

I enjoy reading mind books. It seems I always have at least two different approaches going. I guess being a child of the 50s, born in 1950, and coming of age during the counterculture movement, I’m hounded by the neurosis of my era.

Born in 1945, Jack Kornfield  has been on the forefront of the study of self-reflection for us baby boomers. His books have been instrumental in expanding the modern cultural blending of Buddhism and Western Psychology.

After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1967, he trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India. In 1975, he co-founded the insight meditation society in Barre, Massachusetts. He holds a Ph.D in Clinical Psychology. He is one of America’s most respected Buddhist teachers with over 40 years of committed study and practice.

Jack insight is shared with his new book Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are. The first section is a reflection for learning who you are. The following sections deal with accepting your place in time now, developing insight about how you got here, and understanding your present through mindful reflection. These lead to developing a spiritual path that fits your perspective amid the ups and downs of daily life.

Jack reviews lessons from three modern masters who influenced him. He addresses some of the problems early Buddhist leaders confronted when opening the doors for the West. This section was very interesting as it dealt with issues like:

1. The sex lives of our modern gurus

2. Drugs and spiritual practice

3. Shadow work or healing personal pains

4. The different interpretations of enlightenment

Jack’s final section offers suggestions about useful daily practices.

Jack also selected and edited The Buddha Is Still Teaching: Contemporary Buddhist Wisdom. Last year I read this and have enjoyed sharing this easy-to-read little book with others. Jack picked out short sections of the lion’s roar from the most highly regarded contemporary Buddhist teachers. These selections revolve around a common theme, for example, compassion and courage. The index of teachers is a Who’s Who and the bibliograpy is an excellent reading list.

Over the years I’ve enjoyed Jack’s writing. Four favorites are:

1. Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation with Joseph Goldstein (Shambhala, 1987)

2. A Path with Heart: A Guide through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life (Bantam, 1993)

3. After the Ecstasy the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path (Bantam, 2000)

4. The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology (Bantam, 2008)

Set in the 1940s and early 1950s, the novel  Nemesis explores the effects of the devastating disease of polio and how it chose at random young innocent children, snatching them from their families and friends, often with the result of a quick demise, if not life long paralysis. My own paternal grandfather suffered the effects of polio as a young man. He walked with a limp his entire life because of the disease. This made me so sad as a child, his limp, and his shorter leg. The older brother of one of my childhood friends contracted polio only months before the vaccine was available to his sister and to me and my family, as well as other families in my south Mississippi hometown. On Sunday afternoon, we all went to the local high school and swallowed our “sugar” pills which protected us for life. I remember the day well. I was about five or six years old. And we were the lucky generation. We were born at the right time and were protected from the debilitating disease which affected, as we all know, President Roosevelt. So, this novel had a personal interest to me before I picked it up.

The protagonist, a young twenty something, is prevented from going to WWII due to his poor eyesight. He sadly failed the test, that is in his opinion, and, therefore, was prevented from going overseas with his buddies. His grandparents with whom he lived, were relieved, thinking him safe at home teaching  grammar school and junior high school children during the school year and supervising the playgrounds during the summer……until, his special loveable young boys began contracting the disease. They fell, one by one. The New York and New Jersey communities were devastated, scared, and angry. Was the physical education playground person in charge, letting their children get too hot, or too tired? Was that why these boys got polio?

Scared to death herself, the protagonist’s fiance persuaded her future husband to leave the playground and join her at a  polio-free summer camp in up state New York. He arrived to find happiness and no polio, at least for the first two weeks. Then a boy in his cabin woke in the middle of the night sick, very sick, and within days was dead. The verdict: polio. It turns out that the protagonist was a symptom free carrier.

I am not going to tell “the rest of the story”, as my childhood radio star Paul Harvey would say. You, reader, must read this incredible novel, AND come join us for book club on Thursday, March 1, at noon at our dot.com building. The book is short, so there is still time to read it before next Thursday if you have not already started.   The discussion will certainly prove to be lively and thought provoking. It always is!

During a visit to the aquarium, the precocious Elliot realizes that he has always wanted a pet penguin. He know that if he is to get a penguin, he must ask his father, who without much thought, says yes. We as the reader know that Elliot should have realized that when fathers say yes to getting a penguin, they usually mean a stuffed one from the gift shop. This clever story by Toni Buzzeo is absolutely adorable and David Small’s illustrations complete the hilarity of this tale. With a surprising ending that is completely unexpected, this book gets an A+ in my book.

I personally love David Small. His art is iconic and whimsical. He is also highly acclaimed. He has won a Caldecott Honor for his book The Gardener and a Caldecott Medal for So, You Want To Be President. I think he did an especially good job with this story. The simple color palette highlights the logical, if not off base Elliot when he decides that he wants a penguin–and decides to liberate a real penguin from the aquarium. This story is fun for kids and adults all the way to the unexpected ending.

All this to say, I am very happy to announce that we have a small supply of One Cool Friend signed by the author, Toni Buzzeo, AND the illustrator, David Small! I hope that y’all enjoy this book as much as I did. It is a hoot!

Another book we have read recently is Children Make Terrible Pets by Peter Brown. This beautifully illustrated book flips the normal childhood experience of finding an animal in your yard and asking your parents if you can keep it. In this story a bear cub finds a little boy and although his mother tells him that Children Make Terrible Pets he still has to find out for himself. Maybe Anna will read this one at story time sometime.

Harper is learning to read and we had a tolerable time sounding out words in the Peter Brown book, while in the Judy Moody books we are usually so carried away by the story that we don’t work on our reading as much.

Check out Judy Moody here.

and Children Make Terrible Pets here.

and if you’re wondering the boy child is still way into truck books.

I’ve never been a fan of Black Sabbath.  I’ve never hated them, either.  They’re just one of those bands that came and went before my time. On the subject of my last blog (which can be viewed here), a 33 1/3 book that really stuck out for me was the fifty-sixth in the series covering Master of Reality by Black Sabbath written by John Darnielle.  There are two things that make this book special to me, and neither of them have to do with Ozzy Osbourne.

1.  John Darnielle is a name that was familiar to me before discovering this book.  Darnielle is the only continuing member of the band The Mountain Goats.  Being quite literary, Darnielle frequently writes albums of fiction.  Stories that continue from song to song.  Sometimes fictional, sometimes non.  As a proponent for literature, I have always been fond of John Darnielle.

2.  Unlike nearly every other book in the 33 1/3 series, Darnielle wrote his as a work of fiction.  Amazingly he still manages to discuss every song on the album, including background information on the musicians, all while developing his characters.  If it weren’t about Black Sabbath, it may very well have been the perfect merger of music and fiction.

Below is Darnielle under his moniker The Mountain Goats performing his song “Color in Your Cheeks” from his 2002 album All Hail West Texas.  For more on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert click here.

People like myself who have a monkey mind, a mind that flits from one thought to another as quickly as a firefly dims its light only to blink again can learn to focus and eliminate agitation, thus quieting the monkey mind who can find no place to rest.

Ricard says everyone of us has a mind and every one of us can work on it. We needn’t set up a cozy place with fluffy pillows, soft blankets and props. We can just sit comfortably, relaxing our shoulders while keeping our spine straight “like a pile of gold coins,” in lotus or half lotus position, hands resting palms up, chin tucked, tongue comfortable against the soft palate, eyes open or half closed and directed downward. And then stay there, just like that for up to 20 minutes focusing the mind on one’s breath or some insight.

Committing to such a practice on a daily basis, he says, not only benefits the person meditating but also the greater community of humankind. When we love ourselves and accept ourselves from a quieter gentler state of being, we are able to project that compassion and gentleness into the world at large. When we meditate we are not retreating to a remote place alone with our ego, we are expanding and shifting and opening to new possibilities, new ways of seeing ourselves and the world.

You will benefit from my clearer, more focused mind and we will engage in more compassionate, baggage free relationships by just dedicating a few moments a day to our well being. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Of course, Ricard has a lot more to say about how and why to meditate but he has vowed to keep it simple and has added a dvd at the end of the book to facilitate our practice.

He offers suggestions on meditative subjects like “the antidote of love and compassion” and then gives short pithy statements from well known meditators to inspire that particular subject like D. K. Rinpoche who says “instead of hating so called enemies, the real target of your hatred should be hatred itself.”

This book can be read in about an hour. The benefits of meditation can last a lifetime.

Why Meditate? Working with Thoughts and Emotions by Matthieu Ricard (Hay House Books, 2010)