The Sweeper: A Buddhist Tale

Gr 1–3—The sweeper in this brightly painted picture book is Padme, an orphaned servant girl in ancient India. Bored with her chores and disillusioned at a tender age, Padme wants more from life than the demands of her perfectionist master and mistress. A visit from the Buddha changes nothing and yet everything. Padme's physical circumstances are never altered—she remains the palace sweeper throughout her adult life, marries the gardener, and has two children. However, Padme's internal dialogue and attitude are transformed by the Buddha's recommendation to view sweeping as a daily act of meditation. A newfound fondness for her work endears Padme to her masters, who in turn treat her better. The Buddha visits Padme once more in her adulthood, and at her request teaches the community a chant to bring happiness and end suffering. Hazell's text is simple and clear, and passages featuring the Buddha's gentle instructional lectures on meditative breathing and chanting are particularly strong. The story holds up better than the watercolor illustrations, which while beautiful, delicate, and cheerfully colored, comprise predictable clusters of stiffly modeled figures. The painted tableaux appear costumed and posed rather than living and breathing, and characters lack dynamism and variety in facial features and expression that could have aided story development and prompted reader investment in the fate of Padme and her community.