Wabi Sabi, written by Mark Reibstein and illustrated by Ed Young, tells the story of a cat who sets out on a journey to discover what his name, Wabi Sabi, means.

As Mark Reibstein describes it in the book's introduction, wabi sabi is "a way of seeing the world that is at the heart of Japanese culture. It finds beauty and harmony in what is simple, imperfect, natural, modest, and mysterious. It can be a little dark, but it is also warm and comfortable. It may be best understood as a feeling, rather than as an idea."


With a portrait layout rather than the standard landscape orientation seen in most books, Reibstein and Young's words and images work together to create a book that is itself wabi sabi - at once simple, imperfect, natural, modest and mysterious. Young's collages are made with mostly natural materials - so lush and wonderfully textural that more than once I found myself touching the page to see if I could feel the bark on the tree or the monkey's hair. Reibstein effortlessly weaves haiku into the story; each animal that Wabi Sabi visits comments on how difficult it is to explain the concept but offering a small clue in the form of a haiku. Down the page are Japanese haiku by Basho and Shiki which are translated in the back of the book. The concept of wabi sabi is difficult to explain in words but even more challenging to embrace as a way of life. But the book makes you want to try, and as it tells our children that some truths are worthy of a quest, it reminds us that some are elusive even for adults.


Wabi Sabi is on sale on Amazon.com for about $11, 35% off the book's cover price of $17.

Images copyright 2008 Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Reproduced by permission.
- Jeremiah