A man tricks a young fox into believing that he will give him a chicken. The fox is trapped, but through ingenuity and perseverance, he escapes. Reading this story inspires children to face challenges directly, and even to use the obstacles in their paths to solve problems. This story belongs to the rich and ancient storytelling tradition of Central Asia and the Middle East. Retold here by the author and educator Idries Shah, it is one of a series of illustrated books for the young. These tales are designed to foster thinking skills and perception. In an entertaining...
A man tricks a young fox into believing that he will give him a chicken. The fox is trapped, but through ingenuity and perseverance, he escapes. Re...
The Silly Chicken is a delightful and humorous tale about a chicken who learns to speak as we do - with surprising and unexpected consequences. The events that follow intrigue young children and, and at the same time, alert them in a very amusing way to the dangers of being too quick to believe everything you hear.
Illustrator Jeff Jackson creates a lively and amusing world, rich in color and expression, in which anything can happen.
This tale is one of the many hundreds of Sufi developmental stories collected by Idries Shah from oral and written sources in Central...
The Silly Chicken is a delightful and humorous tale about a chicken who learns to speak as we do - with surprising and unexpected conseque...
In this amusing story, an old woman encounters an eagle for the first time. Perplexed by its unfamiliar appearance, she decides to change it to suit her own ideas of what a bird should look like. Her efforts mirror a common pattern of human thought: altering the unfamiliar to make it acceptable. This tale is specially presented for children by Afghan author Idries Shah, who, for more than 30 years, collected stories from the Sufi tradition and adapted them to contemporary Western culture. Told since ancient times throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, such tales are used to help...
In this amusing story, an old woman encounters an eagle for the first time. Perplexed by its unfamiliar appearance, she decides to change it to sui...
A good-natured lion sees his reflection in a pool and gasps at the fierce creature staring back at him and is too frightened to drink. Children will learn through the lion how to deal positively with fears and inhibitions that so often arise from situations they as yet may not understand.
Idries Shah's collections of Eastern oral and written literature have established the Sufi teaching-story as an educational instrument. The original version of this story was told by the 13th Century Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi.
Ingrid Rodriguez has illustrated this tale, bringing the animals...
A good-natured lion sees his reflection in a pool and gasps at the fierce creature staring back at him and is too frightened to drink. Children wil...
The story of The Farmer's Wife tells how a woman first loses an apple into a hole in the ground, and then attempts a series of efforts to get it back. Children enjoy learning to repeat the sequence from memory, and when the story takes a sudden turn, contrary to all expectations, they also learn important lessons on how to resolve problems creatively.
The strikingly beautiful illustrations by Rose Mary Santiago invoke the origins of the story -- this traditional story has been told for hundreds of years in the Middle East and Central Asia -- while at the same time lending a...
The story of The Farmer's Wife tells how a woman first loses an apple into a hole in the ground, and then attempts a series of efforts to ...
When a boy visits another village, he is surprised to find the townspeople terrified of something that -- just because they have not seen it before -- they mistake for a terrible, dangerous animal. With his own knowledge and by demonstration, the boy helps them overcome their fears.
This story is part of an oral tradition from the Middle East and Central Asia that is more than a thousand years old. In an entertaining way, it introduces children to an interesting aspect of human behavior and so enables them to recognize it in their daily...
When a boy visits another village, he is surprised to find the townspeople terrified of something that -- just because they have not seen i...
Fatima is a young woman whose life seems beset by one disaster after another. Setting forth on a journey from her home in the West, she is shipwrecked and cast ashore alone near Alexandria. Adopted by a family of weavers, and beginning to prosper in her new life, she is captured and made to work making masts. Undertaking a journey to sell the masts, her ship is wrecked off the coast of China. It is only here that Fatima finally realizes that what seemed to be disasters were really essential steps towards realizing her eventual fulfillment. A story of wisdom and depth, ideal as a bedtime...
Fatima is a young woman whose life seems beset by one disaster after another. Setting forth on a journey from her home in the West, she is shipwrec...
In this amusing story, an old woman encounters an eagle for the first time. Perplexed by its unfamiliar appearance, she decides to change it to suit her own ideas of what a bird should look like. Her efforts mirror a common pattern of human thought: altering the unfamiliar to make it acceptable. This tale is specially presented for children by Afghan author Idries Shah, who, for more than 30 years, collected stories from the Sufi tradition and adapted them to contemporary Western culture. Told since ancient times throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, such tales are used to help...
In this amusing story, an old woman encounters an eagle for the first time. Perplexed by its unfamiliar appearance, she decides to change it to sui...
When a boy visits another village, he is amazed to find the townspeople terrified of something that--just because they have not seen it before--they mistake for a terrible, dangerous animal. With his own knowledge and by demonstration, he helps them overcome their fears.
This tale is one of the many hundreds of Sufi developmental stories collected by Idries Shah from oral and written sources in Central Asia and the Middle East. For more than a thousand years this story has entertained young people and helped to foster in them the ability to examine their assumptions and to...
When a boy visits another village, he is amazed to find the townspeople terrified of something that--just because they have not seen it before--the...
Fatima's life is beset with what seem to be disasters. Her journey leads her from Morocco to the Mediterranean, Egypt, Turkey and, finally, to China. It is in China that she realizes that what seemed at the time to be really unfortunate events were an integral part of her eventual fulfillment.
This Teaching-Story is well known in Greek folklore, but this version is attributed to Sheikh Mohamed Jamaludin of Adrianople (modern-day Edirne) in Turkey who died in 1750. It was first published by Idries Shah in 1967 in his classic work, Tales of the Dervishes, Teaching-Stories of...
Fatima's life is beset with what seem to be disasters. Her journey leads her from Morocco to the Mediterranean, Egypt, Turkey and, finally, to Chin...
