Yugen

Told in haiku-based American Sentences and pictures, Yugen is the story of a boy and his mother, inspired by the profound concept of "yugen," a Japanese word for the mystery and beauty of the universe and of human experience. The second collaboration between Caldecott-winning illustrator Ed Young and Mark Reibstein after their award-winning 2008 debut, Wabi Sabi, Yugen is a book of longing and remembrance that is unequaled in its beauty and poetic simplicity.

Mark Reibstein is an English teacher and writer who has lived in New York, California, Hawaii, Japan, and Thailand. While living in Kyoto, he met a cat named Wabi Sabi, and they remained very close friends for ten years. The result was a book written by Reibstein and illustrated by Ed Young, called Wabi Sabi, that has amazed readers everywhere since its publication in 2008, when it was named a New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book.

Ed Young is a renowned illustrator and writer of children's picture books. Born on November 28, 1931, in Tientsin, China, he moved to the US as a young man, where he worked at an advertising agency before illustrating his first book, The Mean Mouse and Other Mean Stories by Janice May Urdry, in 1962. Since then he has illustrated over eighty children's books, seventeen of which he has also written. Throughout his long career he has received over fifty awards and honors, including the Caldecott Medal in 1990 for Lon Po Po, his retelling of a Chinese version of "Little Red Riding Hood," and Caldecott Honors for The Emperor and the Kite (1967) and Seven Blind Mice (1992). He has been nominated twice for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition given to children's book authors and illustrators for their contribution to children's literature. His books frequently draw on folklore from Chinese, Native American, Indian, Persian, and other cultures, and he uses a variety of media, including pencil, pastel, ink, collage, cut paper, photographs, and found materials. He lives in Westchester County, New York, with his two daughters and two cats.