PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Idries Shah spent much of his life collecting and publishing Sufi classical narratives and teaching stories from oral and written sources in the Middle East and Central Asia. The tales he retold especially for children are published by Hoopoe Books in beautifully illustrated editions and have been widely commended - by Western educators and psychologists, the U.S. Library of Congress, National Public Radio and other media - for their unique ability to foster social-emotional development, thinking skills and perception in children and adults alike. Told for centuries, these stories express universal themes from the cultures that produced them, showing how much we have in common and can learn from each other. As noted by reviewers, such stories are more than just entertaining; familiarity with them provokes flexibility of thought, since each one contains levels of meaning that unfold in accordance with an individual's experience and understanding.
Neem the Half-Boy deals with the universal theme of being incomplete and having to overcome difficulties to find oneself. ... [Neem] eventually becomes whole, not by resorting to violence, but through a combination of cleverness, persistence, and compromise. - Multicultural Perspectives: An Official Journal of the National Association for Multicultural Education (U.S.) Shah's adaptation of this traditional Sufi tale will encourage children to contemplate the meaning of psychological 'wholeness.' - Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature These teaching stories can be experienced on many levels. A child may simply enjoy hearing them; an adult may analyze them in a more sophisticated way. Both may eventually benefit from the lessons within. - All Things Considered, National Public Radio (U.S.) They [teaching stories] suggest ways of looking at difficulties that can help children solve problems calmly while, at the same time, giving them fresh perspectives on these difficulties that help them develop their cognitive abilities - psychologist Robert Ornstein, Ph.D., in his lecture Teaching Stories and the Brain given at the U.S. Library of Congress Through repeated readings, these stories provoke fresh insight and more flexible thought in children. Beautifully illustrated. - NEA Today: The Magazine of the National Education Association (U.S.) Shah's versatile and multilayered tales provoke fresh insight and more flexible thought in children. - Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature These stories ... are not moralistic fables or parables, which aim to indoctrinate, nor are they written only to amuse. Rather, they are carefully designed to show effective ways of defining and responding to common life experiences. - Denise Nessel, Ph.D., Senior Consultant with the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (U.S.), writing in Library Media Connection: The Professional Magazine for School Library Media Specialists (U.S.) These enchanting stories Shah has collected have a richness and depth not often encountered in children's literature, and their effect on minds young and old can be almost magical. - Multicultural Perspectives: An Official Journal of the National Association for Multicultural Education (U.S.) In this tradition, the line between stories for children and those for adults is not as clear as it seems to be in Western cultures, and the lessons are important for all generations. - School Library Journal (U.S.) Our experiences show that, while reading Idries Shah's stories can help children with reading and writing, the stories can also help them transcend fixed patterns of emotion and behaviour which may be getting in the way of learning and emotional well-being too. ... We've found that this strategy can be particularly powerful, especially when change may be resistant to appeals to reason alone. By flying under the radar of emotion and analytical thinking, the patterns contained within a story can shift children's perspective, to let them 'own' the meaning for themselves. - Ezra Hewing, Head of Education at the mental-health charity Suffolk Mind in Suffolk, U.K.; and Kashfi Khan, who teaches English as an additional language at Hounslow Town Primary School in London
