Believing that he loves his beautiful pet bird too much to set it free, a wealthy merchant discovers that animals are sometimes better at learning by example than humans are.

Idries Shah spent much of his life collecting and publishing Sufi classical narratives and teaching stories from oral and written sources in the Middle East and Central Asia. The tales he retold especially for children are published by Hoopoe Books in beautifully illustrated editions and have been widely commended - by Western educators and psychologists, the U.S. Library of Congress, National Public Radio and other media - for their unique ability to foster social-emotional development, thinking skills and perception in children and adults alike. Told for centuries, these stories express universal themes from the cultures that produced them, showing how much we have in common and can learn from each other. As noted by reviewers, such stories are more than just entertaining; familiarity with them provokes flexibility of thought, since each one contains levels of meaning that unfold in accordance with an individual's experience and understanding. Idries Shah pasó gran parte de su vida recolectando narrativas clásicas sufíes e historias de enseñanza de fuentes orales y escritas en el Medio Oriente y Asia Central y publicándolas en libros. Los 11 cuentos de este tipo que adaptó especialmente para niños han sido publicados por Hoopoe Books en ediciones bellamente ilustradas, y elogiadas por educadores y psicólogos occidentales, así como por la Biblioteca del Congreso de EE. UU., National Public Radio y otros medios, por su capacidad única de fomentar el desarrollo socioemocional, y la capacidad de pensamiento y percepción, tanto en niños como en adultos. Contadas durante siglos, estas historias expresan temas universales y ofrecen una representación positiva de culturas importantes, pero a menudo incomprendidas, mostrando cuánto tenemos en común y qué podemos aprender unos de otros. Estos cuentos reconocen la individualidad y singularidad de un niño y fomentan un sentido de confianza, responsabilidad y propósito.