Fatima the Spinner and the Tent / İPLİKÇİ FATMA VE ÇADIR - (Teaching Stories) by Idries Shah (Paperback)

About the Book

Fatima's life seems beset by one disaster after another. Finally she realizes that what seemed to be disasters were essential steps toward realizing her eventual fulfillment. Her story helps children understand the need for perseverance.

Book Synopsis

(Bilingual English-Turkish edition) 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, Egypt. Adopted by a local family of weavers, and beginning to prosper in her new life, she is captured and forced to work making masts for ships. While undertaking a journey to sell the masts, she finds herself shipwrecked once again - this time off the coast of China, where she finally realizes that what seemed to be disasters were really essential steps toward her eventual fulfillment. Full of wisdom and depth, and ideal as a bedtime story, Fatima's tale helps children understand the need for perseverance to reach their goals. This traditional teaching story is well known in Greek folklore, but the present version is attributed to Sheikh Mohamed Jamaludin of Adrianople (modern-day Edirne in Turkey), who died in 1750. Fatima the Spinner and the Tent is filled with wonderful illustrations by Natasha Delmar, who was taught to paint by her father, the celebrated classic Chinese painter Ng Yi-Ching. Delmar captures Fatima's adventures with a wealth of detail and color and, using Middle Eastern and Chinese design, transports readers to the exotic lands of Fatima's travels in a way delightful to both young and old.

(İngilizce-Türkçe İki Dilli Baskı) Elinizde tuttuğunuz kitap, yazar ve eğitimci İdris Şah'ın yeniden yorumladığı çocuklar için geleneksel hikâyeler serisinin dokuzuncu kitabıdır. Bu hikâyenin kahramanı Fatma'nın hayatı ilk başta felaket gibi görünen olaylarla kuşatılmıştır. Çıktığı yolculuk Fatma'yı Fas'tan Akdeniz'e, oradan Mısır'a, Türkiye'ye ve nihayet Çin'e götürür. Çin'de, Fatma başta büyük talihsizlikler gibi görünen olayların, mutluluğa ulaşmasının ayrılmaz birer parçası olduğunu anlar. Bu öğretici hikâye Yunan halk edebiyatında iyi bilinir, ancak bu version 1750'de Türkiye'de ölen Edirneli Seyyid Mehmed Cemâleddin'e atfedilir. Hikâye ilk kez İdris Şah'ın 1967'de yayınlanan "Derviş Masalları Tasavvuf Üstadlarının Son Bin Yıldaki Öğretileri" isimli klasik eserinde yayınlanmıştır. Tasavvuf geleneğinde çocuk masalları, eğlenceli veya folklorik hikâyeler ve öğretici veya etkili hikâyeler arasında bir devamlılık bulunur. Çocukların zor durumlarla başa çıkmasına yardımcı olan ve onlara tutunacak bir şeyler veren bir hikâye, aynı zamanda yetişkinlerde daha derin bir anlayışı teşvik edebilir.

Review Quotes

"... an excellent example of a 'Teaching-Story' used to promote critical thinking through the power of an entertaining tale." - Foreword Reviews (U.S.)

"This fascinating tale will captivate young readers with its suspenseful plot. Older readers can make connections with their own lives and explore the deeper meanings of the concepts of misfortune, opportunity, and ultimate happiness." - Denise Nessel, Ph.D., Consultant and Director of Publications, National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (U.S.)

"If you are looking for a book for all ages that all can take something away from the reading, this just might be the book you are looking for. While aimed at children ... there is definitely more to it than that and even adults will find something to take away from the experience." - Wisconsin (U.S.) Muslim Journal

"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: he 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 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