Recently I read a blog written by George Dow (May 2020), a good friend and business consultant for executive transition and transformation, about following a path with heart. George’s quote from Carlos Castaneda from The Teaching of Don Juan, struck a chord in me. “Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, you must always keep
I am pleased to share with you Akira Kusaka’s video, “An Illustrator’s Journey,” about illustrating A Bowl Full of Peace.
For two hours on a Saturday morning, I sat at a kitchen table with a potter whose initials are K.M. Together, we stared at Sachiko’s grandmother’s bowl. The real bowl. The one that belonged to Sachiko’s grandmother. The one that had survived the Nagasaki atomic bomb. The same one Sachiko had given me as a
I always knew Grandmother’s bowl had its own story to tell. When editor Carol Hinz suggested a picture book about Sachiko Yasui’s Nagasaki survival story for a younger audience, I was grateful for the invitation. I knew immediately the focus would be Sachiko’s grandmother’s bowl. In Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story, Grandmother’s bowl was
Recently I came upon the extraordinary picture book, Wabi Sabi, by Mark Reibstein and Ed Young. I had heard of the Japanese phrase “wabi sabi,” but I never really understood what it meant until I read this story. Author Mark Reibstein explains “wabi sabi” this way: Wabi sabi is a way of seeing the world that is
I’ve been on the lookout for peace stories, and they’re everywhere, sometimes in the most unlikely places. I found one surprising peace story in the heart of Boston, in the city’s historic Public Garden. Anyone familiar with children’s literature knows of the 1941 classic Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. You may remember Mr.
written by Lonni Skrentner with Ayoni Esquilano Caren: I’ve always admired my friend and colleague Lonni Skrenter and have relied on her expertise as an exemplar high school history teacher. Lonni has wide educational experience, but mostly I know Lonni from her teaching days at Edina High School in Edina, Minnesota, an upper-middle class community with
Last month, I had the pleasure of visiting Scenic Heights Elementary School in Minnetonka, Minnesota to speak to their fifth grade students about Sachiko. There was something unusual about how the kids responded to my presentation describing Sachiko’s life as a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb and her pathway to peace. Only ten and
“Finding Your One True Story.” That was the title of author Meg Medina’s lecture at Hamline University’s MFAC residency this January. I was in the audience, pondering her words. Finding your “one true story” implies that we all have one true story. What was mine? Last year, 2017, was a big year for Sachiko. I had
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