I essentially can't help but love this, considering it's a children's book about mindfulness that centers my neighborhood in Chicago. I do think it's a good message for children, to learn to look at things in different ways. And not just children - it's something I am continually working towards myself.

I am, however, not incredibly impressed with the artwork. It's not terrible, but it's not really great either. And the Chicago geography is a little iffy. But besides that, I did enjoy it very much.

*thank you to Netgalley, Emily France, Natalie Becher and Shambhala Publications, Inc. for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*


3 stars.

I liked this enough. I thought that the illustrations were quite good. The story will be one that children who have had to move homes, especially from one country to another will be able to relate to. But in saying that, not all of them will be able to adjust as quickly as the boy in this story does. Still they will pick up that it's ok to be sad about leaving your first home but it doesn't mean you will always feel that way. In saying that I will add that this won't be the case for every child. I'm probably going to deep and personal here so I'll leave it there. It's still a nice little book and I like the use of Buddha and introducing him to children who don't yet know of him and his ways

Krit Dreams of Dragon Fruit is a story about the immigrant experience and finding home wherever you go.

I like the overall premise. Unfortunately, in this case, it seems subtly appropriative. The authors' note at the end further muddies the issue and makes me wonder about the motivation for using a Thai boy as a main character. There's a huge difference between a child being dragged across the globe by his parents to an unfamiliar city and an affluent adult making their own decisions about where they want to go.

The writing is mediocre. A glaring dangling participle tripped me up early on. There's also evidence that writers today don't know how to properly use quotation marks when dealing with paragraph breaks. (I'm not picking on these two specifically; I'm seeing this more in recent years in various picture books.) The illustrations are okay, but I found them a little flat. I wanted to feel the way about Thailand that Krit did... but the pictures didn't really help get me to that emotional place.

Overall, this is okay in that it sort of introduces Buddhist concepts to kids. However, I question the use of a Thai main character. The use of that ethnicity sends the message (inadvertently or not) that Western kids can't be Buddhist. (A little digging shows me that Natalie Becher was born and raised in Thailand. Why on earth is this not mentioned anywhere? It would go a long way to making the book look less like it's trying to capitalize on someone else's culture.)