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Your Mind Makes Thoughts Like Your Butt Makes Farts

Published by Wisdom Publications
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

Most mindfulness books for kids are calm and soothing; this one is funny and gross—just what kids like!

Sometimes we have nightmares, or we’re filled with anxiety and fear. And when you’re a kid, you don’t always understand why or what to do about it. Your Mind Makes Thoughts Like Your Butt Makes Farts is funny and gross, but more importantly, it gives kids the big tools they need to cultivate a relationship with their mind, to become its friend and understand that they don’t have to listen to everything it says—to realize that thoughts (like gas) will pass.

About The Author

Todd Strauss-Schulson is an award-winning writer/director. His films include A Very Harold & Kumar ChristmasThe Final Girls, which premiered at SXSW and has amassed cult status, counting Stephen King, Sam Raimi, and Quentin Tarantino as vocal fans; Isn't It Romantic, starring Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth, Adam Divine, and Priyanka Chopra; Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin, which he directed and produced alongside Elizabeth Banks and Megan Amram; and most recently, Silent Retreat, starring Isabella Rossellini, a silent comedy set at a meditation retreat. Todd has been meditating for over a decade and has sat numerous retreats with many of the most notable Buddhist teachers in the United States. In fact, this book came to him while he was on one. His last book, Scrawl, which he wrote with his mother and sister, as a tribute to his late father, was published by Rizzoli in 2019.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Wisdom Publications (February 28, 2023)
  • Length: 32 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781614298052
  • Grades: P - 2
  • Ages: 4 - 8

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Raves and Reviews

"As a proud member of the anxious community and someone with a million concurrent thoughts, I truly love this book. Not only is it beautiful and funny, but it has a simple, yet profound message — you are not your thoughts. Todd makes a complicated lesson easy to grasp, a lesson that took me years to learn, and I’m so jealous that kids will just get it handed to them on a silver butt-farting platter."

– Gil Ozeri, writer, Big Mouth

“OMG! This book is the perfect way to introduce the essence of mindfulness to kids: not by ‘meditating’ but by learning to not take the mind so seriously. Honestly, though, I and a lot of my grown-up students could learn from it too.”

– Jay Michelson, senior editor, Ten Percent Happier, and author of Enlightenment by Trial and Error

“Teachers are counseled to speak in the idiom of the people. The salutary effects of metacognition cannot simply be recommended to children: we must speak in the language of farts. I trust this funny/serious book will afford children new insights into their inner life and help them become a little less intimidated by the off-gassing of their brains.”

– Matthew Brensilver, PhD, UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center, co-author of Teaching Mindfulness to Empower Adolescents

“As an anxious little girl with an overactive mind, I wish I had this book. Luckily, now I get it as an anxious adult woman!”

– Zoe Lister-Jones, actor, director, producer, and writer

“This book elegantly (and sometimes disgustingly) explains a concept that it takes most people their entire lifetimes to learn: mindfulness. Every kid should have this read to them. Every person should read this!”

– Emily V. Gordon, writer and producer

“I wish I had had this funny, thoughtful book growing up as an anxious child. Maybe I’d be less stressed about writing this blurb. I am SO stressed writing this blurb. Can one of you please write it for me?”

– Megan Amram, TV writer, The Good Place, The Simpsons, Parks and Recreation

“Knowing images can be powerful teachers, to help everyone in the family take thoughts less seriously and find a little perspective and playfulness around them, Todd Strauss-Schulson came up with surprising analogies. Phil McAndrew was clearly up to the task of making these illustrations unforgettable. Together, they'll take you on a fun and highly liberating ride!"

– Pascal Auclair, meditation teacher

Your Mind Makes Thoughts Like Your Butt Makes Farts is about the most useful analogy I’ve ever heard for the relentless brain chatter we all hear. This funny book has exactly the right amount of grossness to keep every eight-year-old mindfully enjoying a book about mindfulness. Don’t let the boogers scare you off; the message is spot on."

– Michael Ian Black, author and comedian

"Todd's book is ostensibly for kids, but I’m using it for myself. It’s sweet, funny, beautiful, appropriately gross, and perfect for any child struggling with that very loud mind.”

– Mary Stancavage, meditation teacher

“I read books to my children and now my grandchildren. I’ve never come across a book that explains so amusingly, and in terms children can easily understand, that our minds play bad tricks on us. This book helps explain these tricks, providing us with a first step to finding serenity again.”

– Isabella Rossellini, actor

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