Buddhism

by Anita Ganeri

Buddhism began in northern India about 2,500 years ago. Its founder was a royal prince named Siddhartha Gautauma who became known as the Buddha. He taught his followers how to overcome suffering, greed, and desire, and how to achieve "enlightenment." His teachings spread from India to Sri Lanka and then to other parts of Asia, where it has thrived down to the present day.

Hardcover

First published January 15, 1990

About the author

Anita Ganeri is a highly experienced author of children’s information books, specialising in religion, India/Asia, multiculturalism, geography, biography and natural history. She became a freelance writer after working at Walker Books (as foreign rights manager) and Usborne Publishing (as an editor). Since then, she has written over 300 titles, including the best-selling Horrible Geography series for Scholastic. The series won the Geographical Association Silver Award in 1999 and was cited as being ‘an innovation that all geographers will applaud’. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society where she conducts most of her research for the books.

Reviews

[Hannah Rich]

My group was assigned to read a religious culture book, and Anita Ganeri's book on Buddhism really sparked my interest. This book goes into detail on the origins of Buddhism, the founding ideas, the followers, and how Buddhism is practiced in today's society. Although there is a lot of text in this book, Ganeri provides lots of pictures to give the reader a better understanding of this religious practice. Some of these pictures are drawings, some are digital photographs, and some are paintings. This is such a colorful culture, so many bright colors are portrayed throughout the book.

This book would be a wonderful tool to use when teaching a class about different world religions and cultures. I personally think 3rd-5th graders would benefit from this book more than younger readers. Ganeri's book on Buddhism could stand as a secondary source if a student was doing a project on this specific religion. She goes into detail about the definition of Buddhism, the youth, the search for enlightenment, the teachings, after the enlightenment, monks and the Monastic Life, Buddhism Splits and spreads, Buddhist texts, Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Buddha images and stupas, Chinese Buddhism, gods and goddesses, Buddhism in Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea, practicing Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, the festivals/celebrations, and Buddhism in the West. Offering up such various topics on this religion, the reader can pick and choose what he or she is interested in learning about when he or she wants to better understand Buddhism.

[Rohan]

Buddhism is completely an another type of religion
interesting