The Little Book of Joy

by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Rafael López (Illustrator)

Overview

Nobel Peace Prize winners His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu share their own childhood struggles to show young readers how they can thrive and find joy even during the most challenging times in this picture book adaptation of the international bestseller The Book of Joy.

If you just focus on the thing that is making you sad, then the sadness is all you see. But if you look around, you will see that joy is everywhere.
 
In their only collaboration for children, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu use their childhood stories to show young people how to find joy even in hard times and why sharing joy with others makes it grow. The two spiritual masters tell a simple story, vibrantly brought to life by bestselling illustrator Rafael López, of how every child has joy inside them, even when it sometimes hides, and how we can find it, keep it close, and grow it by sharing it with the world.
 
Sprung from the friendship, humor, and deep affection between these holy men, the book is a perfectly timed and important gift from two revered spiritual leaders to children. It is a reminder that joy is abundant—no matter what challenges we face—and has the power to transform the world around us even in the darkest of times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593484234
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	09/27/2022
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	176,561
Product dimensions:	9.60(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan People and of Tibetan Buddhism. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and the US Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. The Dalai Lama has traveled the world to promote kindness and compassion, interfaith understanding, respect for the environment, and, above all, world peace. He lives in exile in Dharamsala, India.
 
Desmond Mpilo Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Southern Africa, was a prominent leader in the crusade for justice and reconciliation in South Africa. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Archbishop Tutu was regarded as a leading moral voice and an icon of hope.
 
Rafael López is the illustrator of two #1 New York Times bestsellers, The Day You Begin and Just Ask! His illustrations bring diverse characters to children’s books to reflect and honor the lives of all young people. He has won three Pura Belpré Awards, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, and the Schneider Family Book Award. He works with children and families to create community murals. Rafael splits his time between San Diego and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Editorial Reviews

10/03/2022

In this picture book adaptation of 2016’s The Book of Joy, the Nobel Peace Prize winners recall childhoods growing up “on opposite sides of the world.” Mixed-media art by López (The Year We Learned to Fly) initially evokes the specificity of the narrators’ respective homelands, soon moving into more metaphoric idyllic settings, rendered in radiant hues, that spotlight rainbow-like ribbons and are populated by a global cast of joyful children. In initial spreads, readers see young Tutu in a sunbaked town (“One of us grew up in a little house”), while the young Dalai Lama roams a monastic-seeming building’s expanses (“One of us grew up in a big house”). Though loneliness and isolation seem to initially define their respective lives (“Both of us wished for a friend”), each discovers that by opening their hearts to the beauty around them, they become more resilient and hopeful. “If you just focus on the thing that is making you sad, then sadness is all you see,” reads a spread that shows a zoomed-in moment of sadness followed by fuller, more hopeful context: “But if you look around, you will see that joy is everywhere.” With unalloyed optimism, the pages earnestly lean into the creators’ comforting promise: “As it spreads from person to person, the world will fill with JOY.” Ages 3–7. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"It’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two...López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways." - Kirkus Reviews

"With unalloyed optimism, the pages earnestly lean into the creators’ comforting promise:'As it spreads from person to person, the world will fill with JOY.'" - Publishers Weekly  

"The pages glow...For children who find themselves in a puzzling and difficult world, this work can offer hope and guidance." - School Library Journal

From the Publisher

09/30/2022

K-Gr 4—Based on The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, this picture book offers children the idea that joy is everywhere, even during the most painful of times. These holy men share stories of their difficult and lonely childhoods and how they found positive, joyful experiences in the simplest of events. The early illustrations are in muted tones with a hint of rainbow colors. After the realization that joy is all around and can be found in a roadside flower or ray of sunshine, the pictures are infused with the color of rainbows on every page. And when that joy is shared, the pages glow. The idea that even after a storm there may be a rainbow is the basic theme that is passed on to young readers. For children who find themselves in a puzzling and difficult world, this work can offer hope and guidance. VERDICT Though idealized, the book offers true words of hope for any child who is struggling; it may be useful as a classroom read-aloud to encourage discussion during challenging times.—Eva Elisabeth VonAncken

School Library Journal

2022-08-31
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.

Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews