Open the Window, Eyes Closed

For the first time in Vietnam, a children book talks about tragedies, even deaths, in an uncompromising style and yet with such compassionate love. The writer's Vietnamese peers themselves have sung the work as another 'The little Prince'. The plot begins with the birth of a name as the most beautiful sound on earth and ends under a starry, sparkling sky. It explains in the process why it hurts when someone near and dear to us is gone - because the sky in our hearts is ripped apart. Each chapter is a different metaphor. There is the metaphor about music as the eternal mother. There is the lesson about the finger as the proud symbol of a whole body. And there is the simile of the garden - a child only grows by going through his or her little world with all the senses wide open, not just the eyes...

The book has been unanimously praised since its first publication in 2002. The author, who was a painter professionally, became a celebrated writer overnight. Written for children, it's been the children book most widely read by grown-ups ever since.