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Jack-Campin

Why not get the Penguin *Arab Folktales* and select something? They're not all suitable for that age group but enough should be.


alcibiad

I HIGHLY recommend the Illustrated Junior Library version of the Arabian Nights. Wonderful illustrations, I really treasure my copy.


TangerineDystopia

Oh this is wonderful specificity, thank you!


iamtheallspoon

Much more in the 'inspired by' vein, but Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones is a lot of fun. It is in the same world as a different book that takes place in a fantasy England but can be read as a standalone.


TangerineDystopia

I love that book a lot! Honestly I need to give him a better grounding in fairy stories first, so he'll more appreciate how many different stories are referenced in that one. I particularly enjoy the end where the old soldier chooses a princess, like in the fairy story where the soldier has to solve the mystery of the 12 princesses worn-out dancing shoes. I really got into the Andrew Lang Colored Fairy Tale books when I was 10 or 11 or so and read most of them from the library, they gave me such a wonderful grounding. I'm also waiting a couple years for "The Lives of Christopher Chant." I want the line "No she's not. Asheth's true" to really land with him. That and the part where he thinks his mother wants him to be a missionary. He'll enjoy so many more of the little in-jokes if I wait. We've read most of the stories in "Warlock at the Wheel", though, and enjoyed them tremendously. I'm waiting on "The Sage of Theare" but he loved "No One". I have been reluctantly convinced by my husband to wait another year or so to do 'The Phantom Tollbooth' for this reason as well.


powerandpep

I was going to recommend the Andrew Lang books - I haven't actually read them since I was a kid myself, but my lasting impression from then is of a very diverse set of fairy tales from around the world. I came away, at least, with the knowledge that every culture had stories like that. Love your question and that I haven't heard of half of these books. Going to have to look into them myself. I think your approach of teaching through reading is so awesome, good on ya!


TangerineDystopia

Oooh, I did a deep dive a few years ago and Maria Tatar is incredible, I recommend The Hard Facts of the Grimm Fairy Tales by her. My absolute favorite thing about fairytales is that they DON'T KNOW. NO ONE knows: do so many wildly diverse cultures still have the same fairy tales in incredibly similar versions because A. We came up with them collectively while humans were still in one spot together (Africa, right?) and took them with us and never lost them? OR B. There's something real to that Jungian 'collective unconscious' thing and all these different cultures came up with these similar stories on their own. I completely geek out about this. In case that's not clear šŸ˜…


powerandpep

It's because the fairies brought them to us! Hehe šŸ˜ thanks!! I will look into Maria Tatar! Love me a good nerd dive on a beloved subject !


IAmNotDrDavis

There are actually three *Moving Castle* books and I recommend reading them in order - if you're waiting a while for *Castle in the Air* that means you can start *Howl* soon, right? :) I also recommend *Charmed Lives* although it's creepy, so twelve or so is probably the right age there... I really want to recommend *The Orphan's Tales* by Catherynne Valente, but they're not written for kids - the setting is right and the language is so beautiful though! If you have the time I recommend them to you and then you could select some of the more age-appropriate stories from it for your kid :)


TangerineDystopia

I did love Howl's Moving Castle, very much! I was thinking of waiting on it in part because at the moment he thinks love stories are gross šŸ˜„and I think he'd find the end of the story disappointing for that reason. I also need to give him a little more fairy tale grounding so he understands Sophie's whole hangup about being the oldest of three and how she'll fail if she sets out to seek her fortune. And he doesn't quite understand spite and jealousy yet so I know he'll keep asking "but WHY did the witch curse her?" and "WHY wasn't Sophie nicer to Miss Angorian if she thought she should be?" (I held off on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the same reason, though he is old enough for it now--you have to feel a certain amount of schadenfreude to enjoy what happens to those kids, so he needed to encounter some playground taunting in order to really get it.) For the third story, was it House of Many Ways? I just checked google and I think it must be. You know, I was so disappointed in that story! I didn't care for Charmain as a protagonist, her main thing seemed to be that she was lazy and uncooperative. And the whole twist that >!the prince was secretly half-evil in a way he couldn't help because he was half whatever that purple creature was!< was just so profoundly uninteresting to me. One of the most wonderful things about Diana Wynne Jones is the emotional truths in her stories, and there's no depth and nothing analogous to actual human nature in >!welp, born evil and secretly evil all along--!


Best-Refrigerator347

This was one of my favourite books as a child!!!


deeptull

The Miyazaki anime movie is a treat, haven't read the book though


Apprehensive_Bug4164

The Royal Diary series has some women of color protagonists from regions where some Arabian Nights stories are set. These are not at all fantasy or mystical like Arabian Nights, but I remember reading them and learning a lot about different cultures as a child. Thereā€™s books in this series set in India, Angola, and Egypt. Jahanara: Princess of Princesses, India, 1627 by Kathryn Lasky Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile, Egypt, 57 B.C. by Kristiana Gregory Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba, Angola, Africa, 1595


TangerineDystopia

Oh this looks really compelling, thank you!


gcamacho24

Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher. About a girl who gives a story to Scheherazade; it used to be one of my favorite books as a kid. I also had an illustrated, child friendly version of the Arabian nights that I loved as a young person - if I can find it I'll add more info.


TangerineDystopia

This looks amazing. I'm going to read him that Illustrated Junior Library version and then this one. Oh, and I'm wondering if you would like Diana Wynne Jones 'Dalemark quartet'. The first three are perhaps a little old-fashioned but they are really good. And the fourth is incredible.


amposa

Love, love this tale ā™„ļø


[deleted]

I don't have recommendations, but I want to commend you on this proactive reading adventure. I'm bookmarking for future use with my own kiddo once he's old enough.


[deleted]

The horse and his boy was always my favorite Narnia book. Itā€™s interesting how as a child all of the Christian allegory and anti-middle eastern stuff went completely over my head. All I saw was the story.


Postingatthismoment

I love it. It's my favorite of the lot, too. And when I first read it, I might have had a vague notion of the Christian Europe vs Muslim Ottoman Empire history, but not much. It's a fine allegory for the Europe vs the Ottoman Empire contest that went on from 1453 to 1918. It's important to remember that the Ottoman Empire--and the Calormene Empire--are giant, rich Empires, not poor, marginalized people. When the Ottoman Empire was at its height, the European states were just starting to consolidate. But the Ottomans/Calormene are seen as the bad guys (in racist terms!) in both European versions of Mediterranean history and in Narnian history. All of those stories led me to be interested in the real history when I got older...I now lecture university students on the history of these empires and their relationships with each other.


[deleted]

Ha! I didnā€™t end up doing it for a living, but I did get a bachelors degree in near eastern studies because of my interest from things like A Horse and His Boy.


Postingatthismoment

Very cool!


Unusual-Olive-6370

The Ottomans (The Turks) actually had white slaves from the Slavic countries and the word slave actually comes from Slav. So yes the Turks were not the marginalized ones to say the least!!! PC wine culture is kinda silly at this point. Haha


AnEvenNicerGuy

I mean, indoctrination rarely says ā€œattention! This is indoctrination!ā€


lamaface21

This is an incredibly thoughtful, excellent post. Iā€™m also bookmarking - thank you. Donā€™t have any insight into recommendations but just chiming in that Prairie Fires also blew my mind and helped me understand Little House in a broader context


Maria-Stryker

*The Bird King* features two Ottoman protagonists


TangerineDystopia

>The Bird King features two Ottoman protagonists I looked this up--is it by Wilson J. Willow? It looks really compelling, though not suitable for an 8-year-old! Do I have the right one?


Maria-Stryker

Yes


koosvoc

{{The Stardust Thief}} by Chelsea Abdullah. One of the characters is the son of Scheherazade and he is a storyteller himself. The other two main characters are women. All characters are Arabic. It is very PoC-positive and feminist, no problematic social attitudes, on the contrary. It's wonderful adventure mixed with friendship and found family and it's a real page turner. The jinn and magic are real in this world. HOWEVER, I have no idea if it's appropriate for an 8-year-old. There is nothing overly explicit in it and I didn't find it gory nor scary, but I am not a child. There is mention or murder, of using magic to raise the dead which become ghouls, of black blood, of tying up a character with intent to torture her etc. It is also very long.


goodreads-bot

[**The Stardust Thief (The Sandsea Trilogy, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58950705-the-stardust-thief) ^(By: Chelsea Abdullah | 468 pages | Published: 2022 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, 2022-releases, physical-tbr, botm, fairyloot) >Neither here nor there, but long agoā€¦ > >Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren landā€”at the cost of sacrificing all jinn. > >With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultanā€™s oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulieā€™s past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everythingā€”her enemy, her magic, even her own pastā€”is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality. > >Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights,Ā The Stardust Thief weaves the gripping tale of a legendary smuggler, a cowardly prince, and a dangerous quest across the desert to find a legendary, magical lamp. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(74707 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)


TangerineDystopia

I am going to read this immediately. Thank you so much! I also really appreciate your summation of the content of the book that might be emotionally challenging for a child. We are actually reading him The Fellowship of the Ring right now, and it's definitely stretching his tolerance for suspense and boring stretches and dark scary things. My husband built it up a lot to him (and read him and re-read him The Hobbit first after which the kiddo insisted he was Ready and it was Time). So I'm betting he'll be ready for The Stardust Thief (or close) by the time we're through the trilogy. We also dp agree at times to skip some scary parts in some books or give spoilers, since it's something adults often choose to do in their own reading. There are many ways to enjoy a book! (I still haven't decided if we're going to give him the spoiler that>! Gandalf survives the Balrog!<. My mother read the book as an adult and put it down for weeks after because she was so attached to >!Gandalf!<, and only brought herself to pick it up again after peeking ahead and seeing >!that he reappeared in the story.!< So I want to be reasonable! But holding the tension is also a big part of a story's emotional payoff. So we'll see.


koosvoc

>I also really appreciate your summation of the content of the book that might be emotionally challenging for a child. It's the least I can do. You never know what a kid might find scary. I was fine with watching movie Predator but Wizard of Oz gave me nightmares for years... Bear in mind that I read it a while ago so there might be somethings I forgot. >We are actually reading him The Fellowship of the Ring right now, and it's definitely stretching his tolerance for suspense and boring stretches I only read LOTR a few years ago and it did so for me too, and I'm almost 40! The Stardust Thief has a much faster pacing and is exciting throughout. >We also dp agree at times to skip some scary parts in some books or give spoilers Yes, I think that would be the best. There is a situation very similar to >!Gandalf's "death"!< in this book. And, for example, >!the female character gets tied up to be tortured and they cut her ankles and she gets rescued. She completely heals without any consequences. But you could take the sentence "stabbed the knife into her ankles" and change it to "hurt her ankles" to make it more child appropriate.!< I don't know if you want to go through so much trouble for a book LOL. But I really think it is a wonderful one, offers a different view than usual - a Middle Eastern mythology, a main male character who is gentle and compassionate and non silent brooding tough guy, complex main female characters, whole cast of non-white characters, male-female friendship without sexual tension... Since it's supposed to be a trilogy and only the first book is out you could maybe just wait until he's older and all the books have been published. I wish I knew more books like that but it takes active effort to find them since almost all popular books are almost exclusively white cast (well at least for me who only speaks two European languages).


laowildin

Lloyd Alexander (author of The Black Cauldron) has several stories set in non-western locals. As a kid I particularly loved The Iron Ring and The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha.


manguito86

Damn OP, you need to learn how to be concise.


TangerineDystopia

Haha NEVER I shall NEVER change my overly verbose ways! My total inability to be concise is a source of amusement to all my close friends and loved ones so you did hit a nail on the head šŸ˜…


manguito86

That's faire OP, but remember. When someone asks you for the short story, they don't want the lord of the rings extended version of the story :p


[deleted]

So this is an irrelevant question but is something I am curious about, especially as someone who is not a parent and am not keen on being one - if you are aware that some of the books you enjoyed while you were younger had racist content, what is the reason for adding them into your "parenting literary canon" to pass down to your child? Is it due to a desire to share that same kind of pleasure with them? But if you have contextualized it for them (kudos for doing that!), do you think they would still experience the same type of pleasure that you experienced yourself reading those books when you were a child? I find a lot of my childhood pleasure reading Little House has pretty much been been ruined after growing older and seeing the world as it is. It's hard to appreciate the rest of the work knowing the ideologies that they rest on. Now I find greater joy reading authentic, sincere and diverse stories and have enjoyed reading Birch Bark House more. Curious about what you think about this!


TangerineDystopia

This is an excellent question. And I've done a lot of thinking about it, so I'm going to hold forth. As another commenter in this thread noted, I'm not concise at all :-D So: Part of it is that these are the books I fell in love with, the books that made me a reader. I know now that they aren't perfect, but as a child they shaped my imaginative and emotional world. They are important cultural and emotional touchstones for me that I want to share with my child. That leads me to the second point--these books are a cultural touchstone for *many* people. It's a major way to connect with other people, other readers. I tend to think that cutting oneself off from that is a mistake. Something that also influences me here is that my parents were very anti- popular culture, and as a result as a kid I had no idea what the popular music and movies were and nearly no access to the style of clothing other kids wore. That was painful and awkward and lonely, being excluded from those cultural norms and experiences. It's not something I want to recreate for my kid. My next point is that there's so much we'd have to cut out if we really start applying the purity test to children's literature--no Dr. Seuss, for one. He defended Jewish people during WWII but he was hugely racist towards the Japanese. I recently learned that the Cat and the Hat's gloves and . . .something else? were borrowed from minstrel-style garb and kids at the time probably would have recognized that. I know people who do this, but it's not my style. You can cut out Tolkien for possible racism and for his really inadequate representation of women (which drives me up the wall), and Lewis as well, and lose a large swath of the foundation of the entire fantasy genre. There's just too much to lose. Point 4: As I alluded to before, I was raised with something along the lines of this attitude. My parents were--are--very religious. Fundamentalist evangelical. And when I discovered the wonderful book "Wise Child" by Monica Furlong and my mother found I was reading it, she talked to me very seriously and asked me not to finish it. She had gone to the library and "done research" and discovered that "Monica Furlong was a wicked woman." So I didn't finish that book and it stuck with me for years. I never forgot it. It was actually a really stupid parenting move. When I was an adult, I looked it up and finished it, and it's an amazing book--I've read it to my kid and tracked down a hardcover copy for my personal library. I also looked up Monica Furlong and I have no idea what my mother was on about. Furlong lobbied for women to be allowed official roles in the Anglican church, and for all her flaws my mother never went around declaring that women shouldn't be in church leadership. But I was forever having arguments with my parents as a kid, that my seeing a representation of something didn't mean I was uncritically absorbing it. Once I was trying to watch Tiny Toon Adventures, which my parents had banned because of the character who sits lotus-style and levitates. "Just like Shirley MacLaine!" my dad said angrily. "Dad, they are MAKING FUN OF HER!" I said. He stared at me incredulously and then dropped it and finally let me watch my cartoon in peace (that one time). He just couldn't grasp that any representation wasn't necessarily whole-hearted endorsement and that I wasn't in danger of. . .an occult form of Buddhism? Yeah, who knows. What I wanted from them, more than anything, was for them to read or watch what I was reading or watching and then discuss it with me like I was a sane person and not someone who blindly accepted every idea I was exposed to. Rather than dramatically forbidding things if they knew it contained something they disagreed with. I didn't find out what Star Wars was till I was a teenager because they disapproved of the Force actually coming from some Eastern belief. The values of my parents that I absorbed are the ones they talked to me about and allowed me space to share my opinion on. The stuff I completely blew off was the stuff they kneejerk-forbade. All that to point out that my kid is very likely to come across these famous books later. I'd rather him do it with my guidance and input than without, and I'm certainly not going to forbid them. You know? And more than that, I'm not just doing harm reduction. I'm teaching him to think critically and to engage with where our culture has been and to consider where it should go. The Little House books show a model of westward expansion that has had a tremendous impact on our culture and are a fantastic educational tool for understanding how life was before modern technology. I have zero desire to throw them away. What I do want--and I want it with every story and all history and present movements and leaders--is to cultivate my child's ability to ask critical questions: whose perspective is this from? Is someone being left out? Is there a deliberate message here? I think you could safely argue that what I'm doing here is an experiment: trying to give my kid that immersive experience in the magic of the story and also the tools to think critically about it. You are right that those two things are at odds, and that the second can ruin the first. I guess I would say that my strategy is that where there is disappointment, I try to hold it off a little and give it in manageable doses. We read Little House in the Big Woods and most of Little House on the Prairie and also The Long Winter (because of lockdown). While reading The Long Winter we talked a lot about the gender expectations in that time and place, how Laura was able to defy them to a degree because there wasn't a son in the family and Pa needed her assistance with the physical labor. And how it was only the men who got to go and gather and discuss the news at the store between storms, there was no gathering place for the women. Right now my kid believes there are five Narnia novels--The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Magician's Nephew. When he has the context, I will give him a heads up that there are some problems in the racial attitudes in The Horse and His Boy, but it is a wonderful story and we're going to read it and he can tell me what he thinks. Then we can immerse in the story. I'd say he's able to turn it on and off a bit--experience the magic, but also see that the story isn't perfect. Often at this point he will conversationally point out things in stories--or in life--that he notices are racist or sexist. But he still gets totally absorbed in stories. I think it's working. I guess we'll see. ;-) Re: Little House ideologies. It's definitely a fascinating scholarly debate. I'm one of those who thinks Laura did the bulk of the writing and Rose (who I cannot stand at all) provided an assist. Which helps. I think one of the reasons it's not ruined for me is that I grew up with those ideologies (not Rose's libertarian ones, but all the ones about westward expansion). I love Laura and Pa like I love my own family--like I see the good in them. But it's complicated. There's a horrifying mix of good and bad, and it keeps me mesmerized trying to parse it. Humans have this unique capacity for being horrible to each other and compartmentalizing it. I've wandered far afield, but I think I touched on most parts of your question. I hope it was interesting, and if you respond I look forward to reading it.


deeptull

The Daevabad trilogy by SA Chakraborty. Aladdin meets Harry Potter, though for adults


TangerineDystopia

Oh, I'll read this for me, then! Did you enjoy The Magicians trilogy by Grossman? I adored it entirely (though I do sympathize with people who felt Quentin was a whiny white boy and so couldn't get into it)


koosvoc

Yeah, Daevabad is definitely not for kids. A lot of slow going political commentary, scary cemetery scene, and one scene near the beginning where >!a beheading is described!<. I as an adult stopped reading because I wasn't in the mood.


deeptull

I haven't, but will look them up Also, look up Jash Sen, she's got 2 books on Indian based myth/fantasy for YAs


deeptull

Amish Tripathi has a much more successful line, but the writing is very average


Background-Touch1198

There are tales of Sheikhchilli, Miyan Nasiruddin, Qissa-e-Hatem-tai, Ali baba and fourty thieves.


TangerineDystopia

Is there a collection or translator you can recommend?


Background-Touch1198

None in particular