Customer Reviews

The Hungry Coat: A Tale from Turkey

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

 

 

This book is a truly amazing book that makes kids and adults laugh while teaching a truly important life lesson: It's not the clothes that make the man but the person inside who counts, or as Nazrettin Hoca, the main character, states it "he who wears heaven in his heart is always well dressed". It is a must have for all households!

Demi as usual has her beautiful art, but I find it lacking in it's text and style to capture the reader. The ending quote, 'He who wears heaven in his heart is always well dressed.' is absolutely lovely, and really is the only really lovely sentence that has style in this book. On a positive note, this book does introduce a Turkish legend to many who may have not of know it.

My three year old and I love this book! I recently checked it out from our local library and now will be buying it. He was reluctant to read it at first, I think because he's used to bright images such as what's found in Goodnight Moon. I kept reading, though, and when it got to the part where Nasrettin is feeding his coat, my son sat up and paid attention as each food was named and put into the coat. Then the repetative "Eat, coat, eat!" command that Nasrettin gives made him giggle and made me chuckle at my son's response. A must read, must own book!

We are Americans visiting Turkey for several months. We enjoy Turkey and her very friendly people very much and wanted a gift for an 11 year old American child. This book has a nice moral and the illustrations are extremely nice. It is really a parable, not even a short story.

We wanted something to begin, in a small way, to let our young friend and her family to have a nice experience with another culture. Particularly with Turkish and Eastern Culture.

We have found the vast majority of Turks to be friendly, gracious and thoughtful, but if you only hear about Arab Fundamentalist Terrorists, one can get entirely the wrong idea about the Middle East. Just as not all Americans are like Jeffrey Dahmer, nor all people from the UK like Jack the Ripper.

If you have not seen any of the thoughtful parables from the Middle East, you may enjoy visiting your library or Google. Do a Google > Idries Shah Sufis <. He has several enjoyable collections of Sufi wisdom. And there must be MANY more things available.

"The Hungry Coat" is but a single parable, wonderfully illustrated, while the works by Shaw that I've read are small collections of dozens of parables with few, if any, illustrations.

We thought the pictures were engaging with vivid colors. The setting in this folktale brought the reader into the magic of the story. We connected with the interesting and unique main character and enjoyed following his journey of enlightenment to his friends.

The main idea and plot were simple and easy to follow. The philosophical teaching of the story came out at the end in that you can't judge a book by its cover, the moral lesson of this tale.

The cultural aspect of the book correctly demonstrated the times and style of dress,and architecture of ancient Turkey in the 1200's.

The ending quote, "He who wears heaven in his heart is always well dressed", portrayed the idea of what the reader is should leave thinking as the story ends.

This story, built around the character Nasrettin Hoca, is designed to teach the lesson that one should never judge a book by it's cover. Nasrettin is judged by his friends at a feast, based soley on his appearance. The author developes the character using both rich, descriptive language and vivid,engaging illustrations. The plot is easy to follow and well paced for the length of the story. The theme is clear throughout the reading and the author does a nice job of using humor to drive home the message at the conclusion of the tale. This book is best suited to be used with students in grades two through six. Students could easily relate to the idea that people often judge one another superficially. This book could spark a class discussion about how children treat one another. This story centers around a human experience that all students can easily relate to.

We enjoy reading this book at night time with my 6 year old son. It really makes us laugh imagining literal meaning of the jokes while learning real life lessons. I think my son really enjoys it more than me!

It makes it easy to teach the real life lessons while having real fun.

This book will expose you humors of different cultures. Childrens grows up with the stories of Hodja in Middle East, Balkans, and all the way to India. And, it is fun to read it!

This book tells the tale of a renowned Turkish philosopher, Nasrettin Hoca. It would be a nice addition to a collection of books about Turkish culture, especially for the time period in which he lived; however, I found it a little heavy-handed in the morals department. The tale is humorous and makes its point well but Demi pushes the text to reinforce the point over and over until it makes your head swim, "If you want to look deeply, look at the man and not as his coat. You can change the coat, but you cannot change the man. A coat may be fine, but a coat does not make a man. Outside a man may wear a sheepskin, but inside he may wear the heart of a wolf! Many a good man may be found under a shabby coat. With coats, new are the best. But with friends, old are the best!" The illustrations are nice but not as magical as I have found in her other books. Keep this one on the shelf under Turkish Culture or in a collection of Fables, Parables, and Other Moral Tales.