Kindness. Remember this word ?

The Book of Mean People – Toni Morrison’s children’s allegory about kindness and context, in collaboration with her son Slade.

This is a fascinating book by Toni Morrison, reminding of thw word that we seem to have forgotten. Meant for kids, but I guess ALL of us could take a leaf out of the same book as well.

Pretty illustrations and gems like "Big people are little when they are mean. But little people are not big when they are mean.", sprinkled generously, this is a MUST READ !

Here are a few excerpts....

The Book of Mean People: Toni Morrison’s Children’s Allegory about Kindness and Context

by Maria Popova

“Big people are little when they are mean. But little people are not big when they are mean.”

In 1999, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Toni Morrison joined the ranks of other famous “adult” writers’ lesser-known and lovelychildren’s stories when she penned The Big Box — a darkly philosophical meditation on morality, imaginative freedom, justice, and self-sufficiency — in collaboration with her son, the painter and musician Slade Morrison. Three years later, the duo followed up with The Book of Mean People(public library), illustrated by the wonderfulPascal Lemaitre — a subversive allegory for the subjectivity of “good” and “evil,” how context and motive frame those, and why the power of optimism is our greatest psychological defense mechanism.

Somewhere between Twain’s irreverent advice to little girls and the faux-meanness of the facetious faux-unkindness Cat-Hater’s Handbook, the book nudges us to reconsider what “meanness” is and isn’t, and how a child’s assessment differs from a grown-up’s. The Morrisons’ dedication reads:

To brave kids everywhere
(mean people, you know who you are)

Though the book invites many interpretations, depending on your tolerance for the non-literal, its central premise returns again and again to the importance of kindness — something George Saunders would enthusiastically embrace — and reminds us that children, as well as the universal inner child in each of us, can always distinguish between “meanness” that is simply the discomfort of doing things we don’t want to do but should, and “meanness” that springs from truly mean-spirit intention, from anger, from one’s misguided attempt to feel big by making another feel small.