Richie's Picks: ZEN TIES by Jon J. Muth, Scholastic Press, February 2008,
40p. ISBN: 0-439-63425-3
"The trouble is, now that I've heard what Pam has to say about him, I can't
see him as 100% cranky anymore, or 100% terrible, or 100% anything except
maybe 100% human and I'm not so sure I like that. Because when you get down to
it, thinking of somebody as 100% human seriously gets in the way of hating
them." -- Bobby Goodspeed in THE MISFITS by James Howe
In the same manner that Bobby Goodspeed's perspective changes in THE MISFITS
as he gets to really know the grouchy adult Mr. Kellerman (referred to as
"Killerman" behind his back), the young characters in ZEN TIES gain valuable
insight through their spending time with an elderly neighbor.
In this sequel to Jon Muth's Caldecott Honor book ZEN SHORTS, Koo -- who
speaks exclusively in haiku poetry -- comes to visit his panda bear Zen master
Uncle Stillwater for a week. Meeting up with the trio of young siblings from
ZEN SHORTS -- Addy, Michael, and Karl -- they all come to truly know
Stillwater's elderly friend Miss Whitaker who has previously appeared to the
children as being a grouchy old woman. It turns out that she is actually talented
and caring but her true nature is oftentimes masked by her fear, loneliness,
and ill health.
There is also a second aspect of ZEN TIES that got me excited. It relates
to a seemingly minor part of the story in which Stillwater has Koo retain a
disposable cup for later reuse. This is explained at the end in the author's
notes:
"The idea of the disposable cups was inspired by Soen Nakagawa Roshi
(1907-1984). He once led a retreat in which equipment for serving food was very
scarce so students used the same paper cups for tea all week long. When the
retreat was over, Soen Roshi told the students they could throw away their cups.
The students refused, saying the cups having been with them all week during
his teaching, were now precious. Soen Nakagawa's teaching, and his art and
poetry revealed the unexpected in the ordinary. He was an important figure
in the transmission of Japanese Zen Buddhism to the West."
I have spent this week feeling a great deal of discomfort as a result of
what I learned about plastic garbage from reading TRACKING TRASH by Loree
Griffin Burns. I consider myself an environmentalist, yet I regularly -- and
without a thought -- use plastic bags from the rolls at the produce market. I do
reuse most of them but eventually they all get discarded. The fact is, I
don't really keep track of how many I use or how many times they get reused as
they all look the same. But thanks to Jon Muth's lesson in ZEN TIES, and the
information in Loree Burns' eye-opening TRACKING TRASH, I have decided to try
being more conscious of the plastic bags by attempting a new practice.
The other day at Andy's Produce in Sebastopol I was my habitual self. I
took a plastic bag from the roll for some organic carrots, another for a
cucumber, and a third for some mixed salad greens. I have just pulled all three
of
them from the refrigerator in order to give each a name. Now one of those
bags is permanently labeled Bobby, the second, Skeezie, and the third Addie
(after my old friends who are three of the four main characters in THE MISFITS).
I am going to similarly attempt to name all future newcomers. Just as I
knew in the early Eighties that I had too many goats -- given the way I was so
rapidly using up Grateful Dead song titles for goats' names -- I will
hopefully come to a much clearer recognition of how many plastic bags are coming
into
my possession and what becomes of them. Just as Julia Butterfly raised our
collective consciousness by personifying and individualizing a tree by naming
it Luna, I will try to raise my own consciousness by naming bags.
"Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m." -- John Lennon
Actually, you might be familiar with another practice involving bags. Every
year many students from around the country participate in the Earth Day
Groceries Project, decorating paper grocery bags which get returned to the
participating grocer; customers then become enlightened by viewing the artwork and
environmental messages on the individualized grocery bags. (You can check
out this worthwhile program at _www.earthdaybags.org_
(http://www.earthdaybags.org/) .)
In ZEN TIES, Jon Muth gently reminds us that "we are all connected and
interdependent whether we recognize our neighbor's face or not," and that, "It is
easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean." And
through his sharing of Soen Roshi's lesson he provides a simple and powerful
example to all of us who are so immersed in today's gotta-be-new,
consumption-crazy, throw-away culture where sometimes even our elders are tossed
aside.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
Moderator, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks
Caldecott '09
**************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music.
(http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025
48)
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