Reviews By Tom Mayer

Theologians have long noted the spiritual distinction between happiness and joy — happiness tends to be achieved externally while joy is achieved internally — so it’s not surprising that His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu shied away from one and centered on the other in their only collaborative effort for children.

‘The Little Book of Joy’ (Crown Books for Young Readers) is a touching, introspective picture book written for ages 3-7 — although mom and dad will enjoy it, too.

A simple story, the authors’ large format book tells the tale — through succinct words by the authors and expansive illustrations by Rafael Lopez — of two children from vastly different backgrounds.

“One of us grew up in a house,” begins a child playing outside of a modest home in a small village, and “one of us grew up in a big house,” says another, pushing about a wooden train in a palace atop a mountain — “on opposite sides of the world.”

Because we are more alike than different, each child is lonely and sad and wishes for a friend. Yet, through careful observation and experiences of the world around them, they manage to fill that lonely sadness with joy — even when it seems elusive: “Even if you slam the door and your joy can’t get in, it’s just on the other side waiting in a loving hug.”

Sharing such sentiments, the authors are uniquely suited to their task.

As the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, travels throughout the world promoting compassion and interfaith understanding. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal in 2007.

Tutu, archbishop emeritus of Southern Africa, was similarly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1984, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. He died in December 2021.

Lopez splits his time between San Diego and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and his drawings reflect that heritage. His artfully uncomplicated, colorful and flowing drawings complement the universal message.

The combination of all three makes this storybook one for all ages to treasure.

Barbara Benson is a gifted educator, and she has much to teach us in her memoir, “While Notre Dame Burned.”

With her beloved husband dying in a hospital room, Notre Dame was aflame — “the two disasters, international and personal, would forever be linked for me,” Benson writes of the April 2019 events, on which she later elaborates — and in this touching, brutally honest narrative, we become linked, too.

From their early travels moving on faith and little more from Massachusetts to the mountains of North Carolina, Benson layers the journey with stories of family, friends, nature and the soul-crushing weight of the world, writing for her “readers to know that the path forward is painful and crooked, doubling back on itself at times.”

Leaving out little — Benson captures and releases her anger in these pages as well as her love and devotion — this memoir offers comfort, albeit solace that is sometimes cold because that is the way the world can be.

Those looking for such comfort, or simply a truth-telling tale, will welcome the chronicle and poetic digressions in the recounting of a life well-lived — and unexpectedly lost.

Though meticulously written and noted — Benson taught high school English in Boone, N.C., for much of two decades before sharing her talents at Appalachian State University — “While Notre Dame Burned: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Learning to Live Alone” is no pedantic account.

It is what it purports, a shrine built for her husband and all those who have lost a best friend — and a lesson in living with and beyond grief.

Few men have lived a life as interesting and diverse as Craig Morgan — a country superstar you’re as likely to meet in a local Walmart as you are on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry — and while it took him 58 years, he finally got around to sharing it with us through more than a song.

”God, Family, Country” (Blackstone Publishing) is both Morgan’s memoir and a tale of the road less chosen — from his boyhood days and his time as part of an elite group of military operatives, to his marriages, his singing career and the tragic sharing of the death of his 19-year-old son.

With heartfelt ease — really, you’ll feel as if you’re reading in a rocker on the front porch of a childhood summer memory — Morgan gives us a backstage pass to some of his biggest hits, such as “Almost Home” or “That’s what I love about Sunday,” and nearly everything in between.

With a bit of help from Jim DeFelice — co-author with former U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle of “American Sniper” — Morgan shares his heartwarming childhood growing up with his extensive family in Nashville, his training and travels as a paratrooper, how he joined forces to break up a child sex trafficking ring in Thailand and the decision he had to make between military service and his music.

While we know the outcome of that choice, what we don’t know fills the pages like the grand adventure his life has been — and is becoming. Morgan’s not done — that’s clear by the end of the book — and with his cavernous capacity for the words of this title, we can expect another chapter, if not another book, sometime down the road.

An aside for those looking to take the journey now, though: If you have the means, eschew the e-book and pick up both the audio and print versions of the story. Blackstone Publishing always releases superior print editions, but the audio book is in Morgan’s own voice, adding a deeper dimension — and not to mention a song or two — to the story of his life.