THE FARMER'S WIFE

[Editor's Note: This is a combined review with THE OLD WOMAN AND THE EAGLE.]--Afghan author Idries Shah has been writing stories that draw on literature from Afghanistan and Central Asia for over thirty years. These two stories, called teaching stories, will delight children and please adults, too. In the first, an old woman who believes an eagle is really a pigeon gives the bird a humiliating make-over. In the second, a farmer's wife looks for increasingly fantastic ways to retrieve an apple from a hole. Children will love listening to these CDs while viewing the handsomely illustrated hard covers, and all listeners will appreciate the narrators' willingness to engage in a storytelling tradition: Deb Bluford playfully creates the voices of the old woman and the eagle, while Jeannie Blau creates a wonderfully indignant farmer's wife, as well as the host of naughty characters who disobey her. These texts are a wonderful way to bring another culture's insights and stories into your home. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/ MAY 06]