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The Conference of the Birds Hardcover – Picture Book, 16 Sept. 2012
Purchase options and add-ons
- Reading age4 - 8 years
- Print length44 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Grade levelPre-school and up
- Lexile measureNC770L
- Dimensions26.04 x 1.09 x 28.65 cm
- PublisherWisdom Tales
- Publication date16 Sept. 2012
- ISBN-101937786021
- ISBN-13978-1937786021
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Product description
Review
Lumbard's debut picture book retells for a young audience the most famous work by the 12th-century Persian poet Farid al-Din Attar about a pilgrimage taken by birds to meet "King Simorgh the Wise." Sorrowing because they lack kingly guidance, the birds gather together, receive help from the inspired hoopoe, and depart on their quest. Along the way, individual birds confront spiritual obstacles: the parrot's heavy jewelry weighs her down; the finch fears the storm; the hawk, seeking to arrive first, becomes lost. Prose narration alternates with the hoopoe's rhymed speeches of encouragement, which contain a recurring refrain: "So do not let this impatience/ Destroy this golden chance./ Release its hold upon you now, / And to your King advance!" Set against white full-spread backdrops, red-bordered gilt frames decorated with small birds contain Demi's uncluttered paintings featuring brightly colored, meticulously rendered birds against pale or royal blue watercolor washes. A foreword by scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr provides insight into Sufi poetry and bird symbolism in diverse cultures. Both prose and illustrations combine simplicity and elegance, ably rendering this classic tale for a new generation. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)-- "Publishers Weekly"
This laudable attempt to retell the gist of a 12th-century poem of over 4,000 verses may be of interest to religious educators and parents who want to expose young people to varied spiritual values. Attar's Mantiq al-Tayr has been discussed throughout the centuries, and children and adults in Iran and other Muslim countries have been exposed to its ideas in many different versions. Here, the foreword by Seyyed Hossein Nasr provides background information on the poem, with its Sufi, Islamic and Zoroastrian elements. In the body of the text, rhyming couplets alternate with prose that summarizes the action cut from the original as the birds take on human personality traits. The hoopoe, resplendent in her red head feathers with black tips undertakes the role of leader and urges the birds to travel together to find their king. Along the way, different birds despair and try to leave the pilgrimage, but they find the strength to continue as the hoopoe helps each one to overcome its particular limitations. The duck is lazy, the parrot has too much finery weighing her down, and the finch is fearful, but all stay faithful to the search, which ultimately leads to great enlightenment. Demi's delicate watercolor-and-mixed-media illustrations, each bordered with a frieze of multiple bird images in every position of flight, suit the text admirably....-- "Kirkus Reviews"
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : 1937786021
- Publisher : Wisdom Tales (16 Sept. 2012)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 44 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1937786021
- ISBN-13 : 978-1937786021
- Reading age : 4 - 8 years
- Dimensions : 26.04 x 1.09 x 28.65 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 860,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer reviews:
About the authors
Demi was born in Cambridge, Mass. She studied at the Instituto Allende in Guanajuato, Mexico, at Immaculate Heart College with Sisters Magdalen Mary and Sister Corita in Hollywood, California. She also studied at the M.S. University in Baroda, India, while on a Fulbright Scholarship, as well as the China Institute For Arts in New York City.
Her husband Tze-si Huang introduced her to the religion, folklore, ancient culture, and history of China.
Demi has illustrated and authored more than 300 children's books including biographies of Jesus, Buddha, and the Dalai Lama, as well as folktales such as The Empty Pot and Liang and the Magic Paintbrush. Her work has received many awards and accolades, among them the Christopher Award, which recognizes individuals whose work makes a positive difference in the world, and the Middle
East Book Award. Her titles have been designated American Library Association Notable Children's Books, New York Times Best Illustrated Books, Notable Books for a Global Society, and American Bookseller Pick of the List Books.
Alexis York Lumbard aka Rabiah York Lumbard is an American Muslim children’s book writer whose debut picture book, The Conference of the Birds with illustrations by renowned artist Demi (Wisdom Tales Press, Sept. 2012), is a contemporary retelling of the classic Islamic work by the 13th century poet Farid ad-Din Attar. She has several other titles with Wisdom Tales including Everyone Prays: Celebrating Faith Around the World, Pine & the Winter Sparrow, and When the Animals Saved Earth--winner of the 2015 Middle East Book Award. She has an upcoming Spring 2019 picture books with Albert Whitman titled The Gift of Ramadan and a YA conspiracy thriller, No True Believers, with Crown (Spring 2020) . She currently lives in the Doha with her husband and three daughters. An active member of The Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI), Alexis regularly visits schools, mosques and libraries to share her passion of books, storytelling and the various places she calls home (Qatar, Washington DC and Nashville, TN). Favorite pastimes include rescuing Arabian Maus and kayaking in the Arabian Gulf. She is currently pursing an MFA program in Creative Writing at Spalding University.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings, help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from United Kingdom
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- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 August 2023Bought as a present for a small child. His mother loves it and recognises it’s something that her child will enjoy, for different reasons, at different stages of growing up which is what I’d hoped.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 March 2013I purchased this for my daughters after reading the complete one a while back. Has been very well presented and bind in quality
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 April 2015Great spiritual tale for young kids, illustrated really nicely.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 February 2016Beautifully illustrated.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 December 2014Can't praise this book enough!!!!
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 October 2024I didn’t enjoy the writing - I don’t think this book captures the essence of the original story. Perhaps that’s not possible for a short children’s book.
A lot of the conversations with the birds from the beginning of the story are missed out, which is the best bit. It just doesn’t read like Sufism. All the charm and humour of the original are gone and is replaced with a boring, dogmatic story that sounds more like a religious cautionary tale than anything spiritual.
For introducing the story to a child, I preferred the Peter Sis graphic novel (for both the text and illustrations).
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 October 2016A beautifully illustrated book with a story of many dimensions. In fact, it is so good, that a child I had the read the story to, used one of the lessons she had learnt from it to apply it to her life. I would recommend you to buy this book, and wish Amazon would allow for four-and-a-half stars! The reason I have given it four stars, is that I have read Attar's original work so many times in my youth, and this book falls just short of presenting a little bit more complexity that I managed to extract from the original when teaching children. Having said that, this edition is a beautiful work of Art in its own right!
Top reviews from other countries
- YasminReviewed in the Netherlands on 3 January 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book inside out
Beautifully illustrated, the wisdom of the story is universal. This islamic wisdom is exactly the spiritual education I want to pass on to my daughter. Recommand 1000%.
- Mehran K.Reviewed in Canada on 27 June 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars A great book!
This is a nice illustrated book. But it's not the complete Conference of the birds of Attar. I mean that it tells the whole story with beautiful paintings and a few verses. but it doesn't contain all the verses of the original book.
- M. MuradReviewed in the United States on 23 January 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars A Timeless Tale in a Beautiful Book
A common theme in the reviews of this book has been marvel at the book's beauty, from storytelling to illustration, as well as appreciation for its accessibility to all ages, children and adult. Such marvel and appreciation has been my experience as well.
If this book can be summed up in one word, it is "beautiful", if in two, it is "beautiful" and "unique", if in three, it is all that and "rich". It is beautiful in many ways, of them are its its captivating storytelling and its tastefully lavish illustration. It is unique in that seldom, or at least not often enough, does an ancient tradition, in this case the Persian Sufi tradition, and the area of contemporary Western children's storytelling meet, and even more rarely do they produce such wonderful pieces of art as this. That is what this book is, a wonderfully holistic piece of art. This book is also rich in many ways. One of them is in the insight it provides, as perhaps most profoundly done in the foreword. This one page contains more reliable insight to the symbolism of birds in the Persian Sufi tradition than days at a conventional library would likely provide a curious soul with. It helps that the author or publisher asked such a well-versed and authoritative scholar to write it.
In regards to the story itself, there are probably many reasons why such a story lasts about 800 years and going, and continues to be translated for civilizations as foreign and different from its origin's as the modern Western world's. For one, the profound symbolism within it subtly and effectively invites the contemplative reader to examine his or her own life's journey in contexts similar to those of the characters in the story. One finds difficulty flipping through the pages of this book without somehow relating to the scenes portrayed. Reading this story thus proves to be a moving and personal experience, at least to readers that discern between random choices for characters and scenes, on the one hand, and profound symbolism on the other. This story certainly provides the latter. In that way, this book is rich. In its method of storytelling, both verbal and visual, it is beautiful. In its rare combination of things and in its holistic approach to providing a story, it is unique.
I wish for the world's children, and adults, more well-told stories and holistically produced books like this. Many thanks to the author, illustrator, and all those who have brought this gem of a story to the Western world. The divine orchestration that has lead and fueled their efforts has produced a wonderful book for all ages.
- JJReviewed in the United States on 3 January 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful story and illustrations!
The story is beautifully told and would most likely be appreciated by adults as well as children. The artwork is creative and well done. The quality of the book is really superb!
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in Canada on 17 November 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
The colours and illustrations are fantastic and the story is beautifully told with so much meaning.