3. The Seven Wise Princesses, retold by Wafa Tarnowska
The Seven Wise Princesses is a retelling of a Persian epic by Nizami Ganjavi; this version is told by Wafa Tarnowska, with illustrations by Nilesh Mistry. It reads to me a bit like an ancient self-help book - the shah in the framing story learns about love through the princesses' stories, which are heavy with symbolism. Luckily there is an appendix, or who knows if I would ever have realised, apart from the obvious colour symbolism - each of the seven princesses that the shah has gathered has chosen a different coloured pavilion to live in, and their stories are told in order to explain that choice.
I was more interested in the stories being told - which weren't even the princesses' own stories, but one's they themselves had heard - than in the framing story. I was more interested in the princesses than the shah. As a result, I found the book as a whole somewhat disappointing - though it hardly seems fair to castigate a 12th century poem for not being what I wanted!
It was sold to us as a children's book, I guess, but I'm not sure how interested most children would be in it - the original poem wasn't intended for children, and even this retelling seems more of adult interest to me, for all the lavish illustrations.
I was more interested in the stories being told - which weren't even the princesses' own stories, but one's they themselves had heard - than in the framing story. I was more interested in the princesses than the shah. As a result, I found the book as a whole somewhat disappointing - though it hardly seems fair to castigate a 12th century poem for not being what I wanted!
It was sold to us as a children's book, I guess, but I'm not sure how interested most children would be in it - the original poem wasn't intended for children, and even this retelling seems more of adult interest to me, for all the lavish illustrations.