The Old Woman and the Eagle -- Die alte Frau und der Adler

(Bilingual English-German edition / Zweisprachige Ausgabe Englisch-Deutsch) In this amusing story, an old woman encounters an eagle for the first time. Perplexed by its unfamiliar appearance, she decides to change it to suit her own ideas of what a bird should look like. Her efforts mirror a common pattern of human thought: altering the unfamiliar to make it acceptable. This tale is specially presented for children by Afghan author Idries Shah, who, for more than 30 years, collected stories from the Sufi tradition and adapted them to contemporary Western culture. Told since ancient times throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, such tales are used to help foster greater mental flexibility and insight in people of all ages. The Old Woman and the Eagle is wonderfully illustrated by Natasha Delmar, who was taught to paint by her father, the celebrated classic Chinese painter Ng Yi-Ching.
-In dieser amüsanten Geschichte begegnet eine alte Frau zum ersten Mal einem Adler. Verblüfft über sein ungewohntes Aussehen, beschließt sie, es zu ändern, um ihren eigenen Vorstellungen davon zu entsprechen, wie ein Vogel aussehen sollte. Ihre Bemühungen spiegeln ein gemeinsames menschliches Denkmuster wider: das Unbekannte zu verändern, um es akzeptabel zu machen. Diese Geschichte wird speziell für Kinder von der afghanischen Autorin Idries Shah präsentiert, die seit mehr als 30 Jahren Geschichten aus der Sufi-Tradition sammelt und sie an die zeitgenössische westliche Kultur anpasst. Solche Geschichten, die seit der Antike in Zentralasien und im Nahen Osten erzählt werden, werden verwendet, um Menschen jeden Alters zu größerer geistiger Flexibilität und Einsicht zu verhelfen. Die alte Frau und der Adler

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.