Lauren Alderfer

Monkey is not so mindful - his Monkey Mind is constantly jumping from one thing to another. But he encounters a mysterious and playful friend in Happy Panda. Happy Panda helps Monkey know the simple joy of being mindfully attentive to what you're doing while you're doing it.

I really enjoyed reading this book! It was more simple than the other books I selected for this round, but it had a great message. The main idea of this story is mindfulness and creating your own happiness by being present and aware of what you are currently doing. The illustrations in this story were beautiful and helped to enhance the words of the writer. The characters were not overly developed but were created in a way that readers could definitely see themselves in one or both of them.

Illustrations could be better, but the message is a great one. My students definitely got it.