Customer Reviews

The Boy Without a Name

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My 4-year-old got this book for her birthday and it's now her absolute favorite. This is the book she asks for it every night - which makes her dad and me happy because we love reading it. Who knows why, but I do know that the books and stories I loved most as a kid were just like this one - they invoked a sense of magic and fulfillment just beyond my everyday world that I knew in my heart of hearts I could aspire to. What more could we ask for in a book for our kids?

In The Boy Without A Name, a young boy seeks and eventually finds his own name and is able to discard an old dream for a new and wonderful one. Highly recommended for personal, school and community library picturebook collections, The Boy Without A Name is an entertaining and thoughtful Sufi folktale which is wonderfully recounted by Idries Shah and marvelously illustrated with watercolor paintings by Mona Caron.

Tragedies like Columbine are a wake-up call. It's clear that we need to provide our kids - especially boys - with tools to counter the violence and knee-jerk aggression ubiquitous in popular culture. These children's stories by Idries Shah are just this kind of tool. They're not preachy. They don't offer simplistic lessons or moral platitudes. They're more like exercises for "mental muscle groups" grossly underdeveloped in this culture: A strong sense of one's own value. Empathy. Flexibility in thinking and responding. Appreciating that not everyone is the same, not every outcome is predictable. Seeing that there are more than two sides to a situation. A sense that patience and perseverance can pay off, sometimes in unexpected ways. Not demanding easy answers. A sense that things are not always as they seem, that the viewpoint of "experts" - or even the whole community - is not always right. The experience of seeing something that even adults don't see, of creating clever solutions. The sense that taking positive action is possible and rewarding-even when one has to buck the tide. That help can come from where and when we least expect it. The sense that life has interesting "loose ends" for us to reflect on. And so much more. At least one of these books should be on every child's book shelf.

The editorial reviews of by Idries Shah's books for children are laughable at best. Although the reviewers seem to be qualified, librarians and such, they are completely dumbfounded by his stories and the middle east context of the stories. These books are not for the Elmo reviewers. They are highly sophisticated stories that are meant to develop the mind. Idries Shah books, for children and adults, are truly devices meant to develop the mind, thinking and understanding that is outside the box. The stories are beautifully illustrated and are fun to read. I recommend these books to any parent who wants to teach their child a new way to think and to develop their mind.

While this middle eastern folk tale is probably harmless, the reviews here are probably written by the publisher, Hoopoe Books, a division of the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge. Why do I think so? Because they use the same language to be found on that organization's website, including references to Columbine. Will books like this build mental abilities? Maybe. The followers of Idries Shah, a writer on Sufism (Islamic mysticism) who believes that all religions share a secret source, would have you think so. My suggestion would be to buy Shah's books if you like Persian or Turkish stories, many of which are charming. But beware of outlandish claims.