The members of Binh’s Vietnamese American family have varying opinions on spending the weekend at a Buddhist silent meditation retreat. While his parents and older sister have been looking forward to it, his younger sister can think of a whole list of camps she’d prefer to attend. And Binh? It’s “gonna suck” without his GameBoy to help him escape, but at least he’ll be free of his parents’ nagging questions about the fight he recently got into with a bully who’d been taunting him with racist comments. During meditation breaks, the children at the retreat meet with Sister Peace, who tells them Jataka tales, parables about the Buddha’s past lives. As he listens, Binh imagines the tales—which impart lessons about the value of relying on one’s inner wisdom, family members, friends, and community—as levels in a video game, with himself as a character. Still ruminating on the incident at school, Binh reflects on the parables in relation to his own life and how he might open up to his family about what happened. On the ride home, Binh, feeling present in the moment, finds himself eager to talk about the retreat with his family. Buddhist practice inspires a welcome new perspective during a difficult time in this fast-paced graphic novel interweaving contemporary scenes, flashbacks, and video game sequences. (Ages 9-12)

Award-winning author Minh Lê and New York Times bestselling illustrator Chan Chau team up for a fun and enlightening graphic novel about one kid’s journey to finding inner peace and belonging. Perfect for fans of Measuring Up and New Kid.

When Bình fights back against a bully who makes fun of his Vietnamese heritage, he expects to be cheered as the hero. He defeated the bad guy, right?

Instead, it gets him a stern warning from his vice principal and worried parents. Now he’s stuck on a family trip to a silent meditation retreat. That means no talking—and no video games!—for a whole weekend. Could things possibly get any worse?

However, when a nun gathers all the kids to tell them the Jataka tales—the stories of the Buddha’s many past lives—Bình takes a fantastical dive into his imagination and starts to see himself in these stories. Will he retreat further into himself, or will he emerge from the weekend open to change?

With any luck, these next few days will prove more enlightening than he thought.