Mister Ego and the Bubble of Love. Amber Hinton. Illustrated by Gabreyhl Zintoll. Vancouver, BC: Namaste Publishing, 2008. 32 pp., hardcover, $16.95. ISBN 978-1897238363. Subject Headings: Emotional -Juvenile fiction. Self realization -Juvenile fiction. Preschool-grade 2 / Ages 3-7. Review by Jennifer Draper. *1/2 /4

excerpt:

Leo must find out why he gets mad. He goes out into the yard, where he sees some bunnies. 'Should I ask the bunnies?' he wonders. Then he sees some flowers, their heads nodding in the breeze. 'Perhaps the flowers know. Or maybe the sun in the sky can tell me why I get mad."

Hinton takes one of the concepts of Eckhart Tolle's books, The Power of Now and A New Earth, and translates it into language that a child can understand. The concept of the anger and how to make friends with it is explored in this beautifully illustrated picture book. Leo, the angry child, sets out to find why he gets angry, and he learns it is because of a little creature named Mr. Ego. Mr. Ego wants all the toys to himself and generally causes Leo to behave poorly. Leo then asks the entity "All That Is" how to combat this creature and learns the best way is to trap the little guy in a bubble of love.

     The illustrator uses pencil and watercolor paints to show magical pictures of a child's interaction with his fantasy world. There is a rainbow of bright colors that will appeal to the eye of both adults and children. The story will sometimes be hard to understand to those not familiar with Tolle's books, but it will no doubt appeal to the New Age crowd. The author has Master's degrees in divinity through both the Seminary of Spiritual Peacemaking and the University of Metaphysics. Unless there is a known community for its use, this book is –

Not recommended.

Jennifer Draper is a librarian/children's literature aficionado living in Oshawa, ON.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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