Crenshaw's Books & Decks

Ami, The Child from the Stars, is a spiritual New Age fable disguised as an adventure for young adults and adults.

Pedro, a boy holidaying in a coastal town meets Ami, who arrives in a flying saucer and spends the night with Pedro showing him some planets and teaching him the principles of the Universal love, solidarity and spiritual growth.

The book, initially written in Spanish, has been translated into different languages, English included and has sold millions of copies throughout the world since the year 1989, when first published. The book is part of a series, that continues with Ami Returns, Ami 3,  and Ami and Perlita, the latter being a proper children book.

The Authors

Not much is known about this Chilean-Venezuelan writer Enrique Barrios. I had difficulties finding  any independent professional references about him or his work, except for a short bio in a Spanish New Age site called Nueva Gaia. His website is blank. This being the case, I considered appropriate including a few notes about him, translated from his bio page. Barrios is a traveler by nature, having lived in different countries and traveled the world. He sought spiritual answers since his youth and was the disciple of an unnamed New Age guru or teacher who helped him to expand his consciousness in the 1970s. Eventually, Barrios distanced himself from his teacher and focused more on developing and finding ways of teaching his spiritual philosophy, the spread of Universal love, the principle by which he lives by. Although he always wanted to write, two elements contributed to his becoming a writer and writing the Ami series. The first, was a personal incident occurred in 1984, when he was assaulted by a gang; he was going to be killed, but all of the sudden and inexplicably the delinquents, knife in had, run away and disappeared; Barrios had a sort of epiphany. The second event happened on 17/8/1985, a strange light appeared in the sky in the central region of Chile, and stayed there without moving for several hours until it suddenly vanished; although the Press reported the fact, no satisfactory explanation was ever given. This was, precisely, the inspiration for the Ami series.

The illustrators of the Spanish version (Eliana Judith Temperini  & Marcela García)  created a lovely set of illustrations for the book. There are two defined styled, one that I really like, that is painterly and very ethereal, that applies mostly to the description of the interstellar trip; the other images are  "chunkier" more illustrative than painterly, related the parts where Pedro & Ami are in Planet Earth and  in the spaceship, and they are less of my liking.  Who is who? I don't know! 

The Message

Ami: Child from the Stars is a spiritual New Age fable full of wisdom, which conveys very powerful environmental, social, psychological and spiritual messages for young adults and adults. The message that Barrios conveys is heartfelt, and is as valid in 2017 as was in 1989, probably more so in 2017 because of some of the issues we are having with the environment, social injustice, violence, religious extremism, racism, war, and other sins of our modern world.

This is a very New Age book that presents all the beliefs that New Age Spirituality is known for: ↪ Belief in reincarnation as a path to spiritual evolution and growth, and in Karma (boomerang effect) as part of a cosmic justice. ↪ It has a holistic view of the Universe in which everything and everybody fits like puzzle piece and is intricately connected, and also a holistic view of  divinity that permeates the whole Universe. ↪ It has a powerful environmental, ecological and peace message. ↪ There a strong focus on compassion, solidarity, non-violence, diversity, acceptance, inner growth, and on spirituality not religion. ↪ The ultimate aim is a planetary order based on global unity, freedom and collaboration, self-regulated organised societies where everybody has what its basic needs covered and they can focus on their inner development. That world is not based on economic, social, racial, gender, nationalistic or regional differences but on being humans, "earthians" and part of the Universe.
All of these teachings and views of the world are in  Ami: Child from the Stars. Perhaps Barrios' main contributions are, first, his belief that  God created the Universe, and that any manifestation of love is God, and God infuses everything in the Universe through love. His second main contribution is the emphasis on emotional intelligence, as he pairs intelligence not with IQ but with smart living and relating, with solidarity and inner goodness.

Teaching young adults those things is very important, no matter the reader's religious background. Many of the things taught in the book are principles that I live by myself even though I'm agnostic. Some of the messages in the book, are priceless, these are the pearls of wisdom that resonated with me the most:

⧪ Not everything that one considers ugly is bad, and not everything beautiful is good.
⧪ When the scientific level of a world supersedes its level of solidarity that world destroys itself.

⧪ Life would have no meaning if we knew the future.
⧪ Those things we fight to get will always be more appreciated than those we get without any effort. Those who were born without problems or have had an easy life can't  adequately appreciate what they have.
⧪ Busy yourself in improving yourself not on paying attention or worrying about what other people do or seem to be.
⧪ The belief systems of the past, based on "what is unknown or different is dangerous", are still alive and reflected in laws, customs, social and economic systems that encourage or tolerate division, competition, selfishness, superficiality, dishonesty and mistrust among people, organisations and peoples. (loc. 1300-1303, Spanish version) 
⧪ Feelings need to be enlightened by the intellect to become wisdom, and the intellect needs to be enlightened by the emotions to become true intelligence.
⧪ People harvest what they sow.
⧪ Ami explained to me that when the spoken language is insufficient to express what we feel, we need of other forms of communication; then we resort to Art. (locs 3791-2, Spanish edition)
⧪ We should consider all human beings on this planet, all ethnicities and human conditions part of the same family, the human family and, therefore, we should live like a fraternal family, where everybody participates of the efforts and benefits equally,  and where each one is protected, loved and harboured. (locs 3890-3 Spanish edition).
⧪ The higher the level of evolution of an individual, the more s/he is like a child. Also, the higher the level of evolution the lesser is the power of the ego and he higher the level of solidarity.

I specially loved the Utopia Barrios creates in Planet Ophir. I thought it was very modern, very wise, interesting, peaceful, sustainable and liveable. It is certainly idyllic, but why not focus on invented worlds that are full of goodness instead of those dark, contaminated and full of wars?

✋ Although I like the message of the book, the aim of the story is to spread a spiritual message not to entertain. The book is mostly a series of monologues by Ami with some "ahas", questions and realisations by his disciple Pedro. There is some adventure, but it is more a sort of watched passive adventure than proper adventure. There are ways of conveying philosophical and spiritual messages in a novel and creating a narrative that is engaging and entertaining at the same time; in that regard, I felt that this book hadn't achieved a good narrative balance, and found myself bored at times despite the subject being of my interest. It wasn't engaging enough.

✋ The book insists over and over on the fact that God does exist and God is the creator of the Universe and that those who deny it are somewhat lesser souls. Although Barrios mentions that it is better to be a good person and not religious than a very religious but bad person, the insistence on God as creator annoyed me. It is, after all, what creationists teach, isn't it? If you are one, this would certainly speak to your heart. However, there are millions of people out there for whom this sort of preaching be a put off. 

✋ Although this is fiction, it shocked me to find a fallacy. We are told that the planet Ophir's sun is 400 times bigger than our sun, but then the planet has a similar atmosphere to ours, similar kind of people, beautiful green areas. Really?  It doesn't matter if this is fiction, for fiction to be credible needs to be based on things that are possible or might be possible, this is would be impossible. 

In Short

This a clearly New Age spiritual tale, which wonderful messages for young adults and adults, but certainly not for children, unless it is read by an adult to the child. Despite the clear New Age impromptu, the book reads well no matter your creed, and there is nothing that contradicts the basic principles of any major religion. Overall, the message is constructive and good-hearted. If you are looking for a science-fiction book, this is definitely not for you as this is a spiritual fable, the aim of which is to take you in a inner journey not into an adventure. The aim is to enlighten not to entertain, and that is, perhaps, the weakness of the book, and the thing that prevented me from fully enjoying it. The book, if you read it in Spanish, is well written, with a classic Spanish that would please most Spanish speakers around the globe, although I found some expressions unnatural in certain Spanish speaking areas that might be common in Barrios' native land.