Avatar (2009 film) themselves to change into a Na'vi. "Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora", a 224-page book in the form of a field guide to the film's fictional setting of the planet of Pandora, was released by Harper Entertainment on , 2009. It is presented as a compilation of data collected by the humans about Pandora and the life on it, written by Maria Wilhelm and Dirk Mathison. HarperFestival also released Wilhelm's 48-page "James Cameron's Avatar: The Reusable Scrapbook" for children. "The Art of Avatar" was released on , 2009, by Abrams Books. The book features
Avatar (2009 film) New York Times" opined that the film is "Cameron's long apologia for pantheism [...] Hollywood's religion of choice for a generation now", while Saritha Prabhu of "The Tennessean" called the film a "misportrayal of pantheism and Eastern spirituality in general", and Maxim Osipov of "The Hindustan Times", on the contrary, commended the film's message for its overall consistency with the teachings of Hinduism in the "Bhagavad Gita". Annalee Newitz of io9 concluded that "Avatar" is another film that has the recurring "fantasy about race" whereby "some white guy" becomes the "most awesome" member of a non-white culture. Michael Phillips of