Characters whose self-identity as a boy or man is made explicit in the story, or whose gender expression (appearance, clothing, how they present themselves to others), pronoun (he/him), and name align with prevailing masculine norms.
A Sufi teaching tale in which two very different princes find their hearts' desires: one in a wondrous, mechanical fish, the other in a magical wooden horse.
Dari version available in the Bates catalog.
Pashto version available in the Bates catalog.
A man tricks a young fox into believing that he will give him a chicken. The fox is trapped, but through ingenuity and perseverance, he escapes. Reading this story inspires children to face challenges directly, and even to use the obstacles in their paths to solve problems. This story belongs to the rich and ancient storytelling tradition of Central Asia and the Middle East. --publisher
Pashto version available in Bates catalog.
Dari version available in Bates catalog.
When a boy visits another village, he is surprised to find the townspeople terrified of something that—just because they have not seen it before—they mistake for a terrible, dangerous animal. With his own knowledge and by demonstration, the boy helps them overcome their fears. This story is part of an oral tradition from the Middle East and Central Asia that is more than a thousand years old. In an entertaining way, it introduces children to an interesting aspect of human behavior and so enables them to recognize it in their daily life. --publisher
Pashto version available in Bates catalog.
Dari version available in Bates catalog.
A small boy seeks and eventually finds his own name and is able to discard an old dream for a new and wonderful one. Among the many insights that this story introduces to children is the idea that it takes patience and resolve to achieve one’s goals in life. This is one of the many hundreds of traditional stories collected by Afghan author Idries Shah from oral and written sources throughout Central Asia and the Middle East.--publisher
Pashto version available in Bates catalog.
Dari version available in Bates catalog.
Sarie struggles when she reads aloud in class in her South African school, but then she and her friend Auntie Anna find a book about Cinderella in Auntie Anna's old car and begin to read together.
A gentle story about death, mourning and the very special place of grandparents.--publisher
The story of The Snowy Day begins more than one hundred years ago, when Ezra Jack Keats was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. The family were struggling Polish immigrants, and despite Keats's obvious talent, his father worried that Ezra's dream of being an artist was an unrealistic one. But Ezra was determined. By high school he was winning prizes and scholarships. Later, jobs followed with the WPA (Works Progress Administration) and Marvel comics. But it was many years before Keats's greatest dream was realized and he had the opportunity to write and illustrate his own book. For more than two decades, Ezra had kept pinned to his wall a series of photographs of an adorable African American child. In Keats's hands, the boy morphed into Peter, a boy in a red snowsuit, out enjoying the pristine snow; the book became The Snowy Day, winner of the Caldecott Medal, the first mainstream book to feature an African American child. It was also the first of many books featuring Peter and the children of his -- and Keats's -- neighborhood.
A selfish princess has no friends until she meets a frog and reluctantly keeps her promise to invite him to the palace and be his friend, in a book with pictures hidden beneath the flaps.
Reena wants to be a star...a Bollywood star. Unfortunately, her family won't stand for it. It doesn't help that Reena is only eight-years-old. However, a beacon of hope arrives in the form of Uncle Jessi.
"A group of five extraordinary friends and their teacher help save a magical creature from a tyrannical general"-- Provided by pub