Overview

(Bilingual English-Portuguese edition) A wealthy merchant's prize possession is a beautiful bird. Believing that he loves the exotic creature too much to set it free, the merchant discovers that animals are sometimes better at learning by example than humans. This is one of a series of illustrated books for the young written by the Afghan philosopher and educator Idries Shah, whose collections of narratives and teaching stories have captivated the hearts and minds of people from all walks of life. It belongs to a rich storytelling tradition from Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Middle East that is more than 1,000 years old. These tales are more than entertaining; they are designed specifically to foster thinking skills and perception. They suggest in their structure and in the movement of their characters ways of looking at difficulties that can help solve them. Children will learn that it is good to observe others in order to learn, and that sometimes the actions of others are not all that they first seem to be. (edição bilíngue em inglês-português) A possessão mais valiosa de um rico mercador é um belo pássaro. Acreditando que ama demais a criatura exótica para libertá-la, o mercador descobre que os animais, às vezes, são melhores em aprender pelo exemplo do que os humanos. Este é um de uma série de livros ilustrados para jovens escritos pelo filósofo e educador afegão Idries Shah, cujas coleções de narrativas e histórias de ensinamento cativaram os corações e as mentes de pessoas de todos os tipos da vida. Ele pertence à rica tradição de contar histórias do Afeganistão, Ásia Central e Oriente Médio que tem mais de 1000 anos. As crianças perceberão que é bom observar os outros para aprender e que, às vezes, as ações dos outros não são tudo o que parecem à primeira vista.

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9781959393597

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Reviews

"""Two new ... bilingual picture book treasures for young readers. ... Both of these simply outstanding bilingual picture books are especially and unreservedly recommended for family, daycare center, preschool, elementary school, and community library collections for children ages 3-8."" - Children's Bookwatch (U.S.) [in a dual review of two books by Idries Shah: The Bird's Relative and Oinkink] ""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.) ""Shah's versatile and multilayered tales provoke fresh insight and more flexible thought in children."" - Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature ""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. ... 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 ""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."" - NEA Today: The Magazine of the National Education Association (U.S.) ""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.) ""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.) ""... these are vibrant, engaging, universal stories...."" - Multicultural Perspectives: An Official Journal of the National Association for Multicultural Education (U.S.) ""... they not only entertain, but can be understood on many different levels and provide a form of 'nourishment for the brain' that can help develop thinking abilities and perceptions."" - Multicultural Perspectives: An Official Journal of the National Association for Multicultural Education (U.S.)"

Author Information

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.

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