The Legend of the Persian Carpet

I recommend this book, and books like this one, to all parents who wish to introduce other cultures to their children. The story is simple and well told. The illustrations are absolutely fabulous and are faithful to the Persian architecture. If I may respond to the reviewers, folk stories do not always follow the Hollywood goodguy-badguy plot. This story does have morales: We should not get attached to material things because they are not permanent, friendship is more important that diamonds, a little kid can come up with a great idea, great achievements are made by working together. There is some truth to the legend too. A carpet dubbed as `Bahar of Khosrow' (spring of Khosrow), existed at the Palace of Ctesiphone which is referred to in Persian scripts as the `Arch Palace of Ctesiphone'. The carpet was 450 feet long and 90 feet wide, made for Sassanid king Khosrow and for this reason it was named `Bahar of Khosrow'. In the book, the king character is named "Balash", which was the name of five of the Sassanid kings. One minor critique though, the Sassanid dynasty was pre-islamic. The illustrations in the book, both the architecture and peoples costumes, are obviously post-islamic. :-)

This beautifully written and illustrated tale for children ages 5 to 10, shows the power of childrens' kindness and ingenuity in a cleverly written story set in ancient Persia. Told like an old folktale, this story engrossed my two boys, ages 7 and 10, who thoroughly enjoyed the rich images the story and the pictures created. A good purchase for home or the classroom studying different cultures.