This is a bilingual book in English and Portuguese about kids making art. They focused, they struggled, and in the end they made beautiful mosaic murals that they were very proud of. Julie's photographs of them and their work, along with their own words describing the process, give a great sense of what it was like. The words of their teachers and mentors help put everything in context. This is an inspiration for all of those who want to understand and work with kids to help create a better life for them and a more beautiful world for everyone.

In February and March of 2012 I was doing mosaic mural projects with kids in Sri Lanka and India. When the projects were finished, my wife, Julie, came to India to do a little traveling and she brought a sketchbook for me. In the next ten days we traveled through the southern state of Tamal Nadu - hill country, nature reserves, and temple cities. I drew some of the incredible plants and flowers growing there. All the sketches were done in pen and ink, and colored with watercolor. My first trip to India was in 1980 when I was studying the sitar and went to Calcutta to study with my teacher's...

In April of 2015 a devastating earthquake sent people across Nepal in a frenzy, many lost their lives, many lost all they could call their own and for those who survived there were too many pieces to pick. For many hope didn't just become a difficult choice but a prerequisite if they wanted to move on. And that is what they did, they hoped and they dared to smile for a better future. I often found myself questioning whether hope was possible, whether we could ever smile again. I asked the same to people around me and in conversations with them, I saw the resilience, I saw us all rise again....