Stones with your cherries?

Tim Myers (author) and Oki S. Han (illustrator)
Basho and the River Stones
Marshall Cavendish, 2004

I reviewed Tim Myers' Tanuki's Gift on Thanksgiving, and now with Basho and the River Stones I feel gratitude again for his writing. Again, the theme is friendship and the things in life that really matter. Matsuo Basho, Myers' informs us, is one of Japan's most famous poets. While two haiku capture the deep feelings of the book's two characters, Basho and a shape-shifting fox, poems are not the focus. Instead, the book moves from greed (over cherries) to deception to anger and disappointment. Then, with a moment of insight, those emotions dissolve into gratitude and honor on the part of the former victim, and shame and resolve to make amends on the part of the perpetrator. In a world where injustice and inequality are altogether too common, Myers' Basho helps us to remember plenitude and joy and humor, and to act in forthright and compassionate ways. Oki S. Han's illustrations vibrate with color and immerse us, as Basho's river stones, in a world of sensory satisfaction.