Anne Sinclair Mehdevi

From Pillar to Post is a series of episodes about the author's life as she tries to raise a family while following her Iranian-diplomat husband around the world in the late 1940s. It looks like they were all published individually in the New Yorker first and then later collected in book-form. From Mexico, to occupied Vienna, to the Spanish Isles, the author goes wherever her husband's career takes him. But sometimes home may be the most foreign place of all.

What's amazing to me in 2016 is how unconcerned she or anyone else is about the fact that she's a good Kansas girl married to an Iranian Muslim and raising at least nominally Muslim children (although she does joke about it in regards to some Mexican nuns). That certainly wouldn't be the case if she were writing these stories today.

The author writes in a very nice conversational style and is a natural storyteller, so if you like interesting mid-century stories of travel and domesticity, you may want to try and dig a copy up.… (mais)

SUMMARY: A collection of traditional Persian folktales and fairytales.

REVIEW: I think this is a wonderful international book for children. It is best for older children because the stories can be rather long at times, and also contain themes that may be difficult for young children to understand. Despite this, the book contains a wonderful variety of stories, featuring such interesting titles as: "The Tailless Jackal," "Ruba and the Stork," and "The Giant Okab." This is an entertaining way for children to get an introduction into Persian culture.… (mais)