Healing Breath: A Guided Meditation Through Nature for Kids

K-Gr 4–After successfully collaborating on Big Breath: A Guided Meditation for Kids, Meyer and Jacobs deliver another guided meditation for children in picture book form. A note to readers suggests that such meditation can offer a connection to the Earth and allows them to feel empowered when facing anxiety over the planet’s future. After grounding readers in a starting position, Meyer guides them through their breath to a focus on the ocean, and then across the world, flying over landscapes and observing animals and people as they interact with the land. Throughout the journey, readers are gently encouraged toward mindfulness by noticing the qualities of the things around them. After the final landing, kids are asked to reflect on how they feel and to send love, peace, and energy out into the world. The text suggests that readers’ eyes should remain closed during the meditation, as is common practice. However, for those who chose to read the book in a more traditional manner, the vibrant watercolor illustrations offer suggestions of where the imagination could wander. Three young participants, one Black, one white, and one with brown skin and wearing a hijab, float in and out of the illustrations among the vivid but soft nature scenes and swirls of color.