Description

Somewhere between zen and folktales, somewhere between child’s play and wisdom, somewhere between dreaming the world and healing it. Read these stories aloud – to your child, to your love, or to yourself beneath a sacred tree.

Psychologist and award-winning author Valerie Tarico and acclaimed artist Tony Troy weave a tapestry of ten timeless folktales and create a world in which ideas Deas come to life. Escape with your child to a magical and morally challenging world where ethical lessons are taught by trolls, animal guides, menacing interlopers, and magi who guide young heroes and heroines to safety … but only after an adventure which teaches essential and eternal spiritual values: Hope, Empathy, Perseverance, Love, Compassion, Honor, and Courage.

In the title story, Deas, a young girl sets out to free her insubordinate father from jail and ends up liberating her entire village from their fear of creativity unfettered. In another tale, a shepherd defies tradition, stigma, and common sense in order to save newborn twins, who in time repay his kindness. And in another story, a sacred tree decorated by strangers brings comfort to a mother and daughter who are separated by time and distance. Invariably, these parables reflect the triumph of the human spirit, the rewards of persistence, the beauty of the ordinary, and the healing power of steadfast love.

This poignant collection, originally composed by Dr. Tarico for her own children, is now mesmerizes young and old readers alike. Written in the style of traditional wisdom tales, these stories have layers of meaning that are fun and accessible to children, gratifying to adults, and inspirational to both. Moreover, the depth which is woven into each tale is enhanced by the author’s innately spiritual nature.

Message

In a single room with no window and a sagging plank door that scraped the stone threshold, off of a dark alley too narrow for carts, a girl lived with her widowed mother.  The mother took in mending, spending her days in a chair in the doorway, bent over a darning bob and an old sock or a needle and an open seam or a patch fitted carefully to yet another pair of trousers with gaping knees.
The clothes she mended were worn, often threadbare, for those were hard times and the neighbors had little more than the woman and child.  But she mended them carefully as if they were treasured garments, nearly new, torn by some quirk accident rather than the steady grind of hard work.  “Someday,” she said to her daughter.  “Someday I will be a seamstress and you will help me cut cloth from heavy bolts of linen and wool and bright folds of silk from faraway lands.  We will lay them out in a sunny room with a long table, and the breeze from the sea will dance through our window and muss the fabric if we forget to weight it with stones.”