Customer Reviews
Spelling Bee Stress Grows / Mean Old Neighbor Offers Help / Stillwater Runs Deeper 
2008-03-12
Stillwater, a giant environmentalist panda, waits for his nephew Koo at the train station. "Hi Koo," he welcomes his haiku speaking nephew. 3 children and Koo help Stillwater prepare a healthy soup for an elderly neighbor, Miss Whitaker, who the children assume is a meanie who usually yells at them from her porch. Stillwater understands that individually, we are waves, but we are also the ocean. We are interconnected. Miss Whitaker, a former English teacher, can help one of the children prepare for an upcoming bee by realizing that all words (and people) have roots. A nice light story with nice watercolors, although I had greater hopes for Koo's haikus
Breathtaking 2008-02-08
This hardcover picture book took my breath away. Not since last summer's Walt Disney's Cinderella has a book so impressed me with its marriage of visuals and story.
The story is pretty simple. Huge panda Stillwater picks up his visiting nephew Koo -- who only speaks in haiku -- at the train station. They are joined by Stillwater's friends Addy, Michael and Karl. The pandas play with the kids, and Michael tells Stillwater his concerns about an upcoming Spelling Bee. Stillwater then takes them to Miss Whitaker's house, an elderly woman who lives on the kids' street. None of the three children can believe Stillwater would be friends with such a cranky, unpleasant person. Stillwater helps the siblings get to know Miss Whitaker, and they realize she is sad and bitter because she is alone, scared and not well. In the end the kids and the old lady learn to appreciate and help each other.
There is such depth here. Consider the wordplay. When Stillwater picks up his nephew, he says "Hi, Koo!" And then, of course, Koo only speaks in the 17-syllable haiku poetry form. The lovely and realistic watercolor renditions of people and pandas make the whole story seem dreamlike. Stillwater sometimes seems normal panda sized, sometimes as big as a house. The wordless -- and haunting -- image of Miss Whitaker, late at night, looking at a painting Karl and Koo made for her is worth the price of the book in itself.
Yet another terrific book by Jon Muth 2008-02-05
We are huge fans of The Three Questions and Zen Shorts, so snapped this one up upon publication and are not disappointed. Lovely, lovely illustrations that visually celebrate the community that the story endorses. Stillwater, like some sort of modern-day Nana (the dog nanny in Peter Pan), teaches his human companions how simple acts help us overcome our fears. And Koo is a hilarious addition.
Haikus for Life 2008-02-04
In `Zen Ties' Jon J. Muth revisits his delightful story of the friendship between siblings Addy, Michael, and Karl with Zen master panda bear Stillwater. Yet, here Muth adds a wonderful surprise - Stillwater's haiku-talking nephew Koo comes over from Japan to visit and in one week they will discover that many times what seems is not always what is.
When Stillwater makes friends with an angry neighbor, the siblings are speechless. They can not understand how Stillwater could ever want to spend a day with the bitter old lady who is always screaming at them to not play on her yard. Combining his peaceful messages with Koo's simple haikus, Stillwater shows Addy, Michael, and Karl that being alone and scared often makes people angry, but with a little love, patience, and care a person's true personality will come shining through.
'Zen Ties' is a wonderful story, beautifully illustrated by Muth's watercolors. It a great read in classes and in the home if you are teaching a lesson on morality and caring for grandparents and the elderly. Muth's addition of Koo's character also adds a creative journey into different forms of poetry - you can pair this up with a lesson on Japanese culture and a `write your own haiku' exercise with the class. (Literature teachers of older students can use this too!) This book is a great addition to your Muth collection and could be read before or after reading `Zen Shorts'.
Wonderful! 2008-01-27
Zen Ties is soothing / like breathing in yoga class / forgetting worries
Animate readers / with soft, light watercolors / and careful phrases
Rewards are greatest / when we help one another / teaches Stillwater
Be kind to planet / remember not to destroy / learns our young wee Koo
Happier today / for reading this picture book / Many thanks to Muth
A lot short of Zen Shorts 
2008-07-16
I am a big fan of Jon Muth, both of his art and his Zen based stories. The Three Questions and Zen Shorts were great. They make you think, feel, understand, and love. Zen Ties is nice, but that is all. It seems like Muth wrote it in a hurry and didn't put much into it. It was a big disappointment to me.
Wonderful! 2008-05-24
This is a wonderful book. I have a 5 and a 3 year old and they ask for this book every night. There is not an awful lot of action, befitting a Zen Panda, but the kids love it. And it is a book with unquestionably positive themes. The illustrations are really lovely, as well. I am glad my kids like the book because I like reading it, too. I also recommend Zen Shorts and Stone Soup by the same author.
Another Great Jon Muth Book 2008-05-14
I bought this after receiving Zen Shorts. Jon Muth leaves the reader with a sense of calm. Great lessons for children of all ages.
Richie's Picks" ZEN TIES 2008-03-18
"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.)
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.
Fabulous Zen! 2008-03-13
I learn so much about life from this fabulous author!
He lovingly distills the wisdom of ancient Zen teachings into the most touching and practical stories about the things we all come up against in life and frequently do not, despite our best intentions, know how to handle.
I discovered his books while visiting my brother's family. My sister-in-law bought me 'Zen Shorts', and told me that while Muth writes for children, SHE had learned more about HER life from that one book than most adult books she had read.
I bought 'Zen Ties' immediately when it came out because it is one of those books that can just shift your reality enough that it allows you to see life from a completely different angle. It is a short, lovely read and re-read when you, an adult, need a shift in perspective.
I recommend his books very highly! And, if you enjoy his books as much as I do, I also highly recommend a book called Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment by Ariel and Shya Kane. It is easy to read and also based on stories of things that confront all of us in our everyday lives and offers, as Muth does in 'Zen Ties', a completely different angle on how to see life.
