We are slowly getting back into the rhythm of home-edding alhamdulillah. (I miss my stitching!) I’m honestly not an unschooler (don’t hang me!), so while I do enjoy down times and vacations, I do get a litttle anxious and start stressing about how much more we need to do. I’m not the kind who expects the kids to do a lot of written work, but I do want their days to be productive. It doesn’t help that I always want to do more with the kids – we always have a million projects we want to delve into, homeschooling and otherwise.

Marz has been working on her writing. She has been doing reports on Science and History and although she needs to work a little harder on her spelling (it’s more carelessness than anything!), I think she has done well in this area, alhamdulillah. She likes doing research and enjoys ploughing through different books, compiling information and writing it all out. Alhamdulillah our local homeschooling co-op run by my friend Umm Aymun has helped a great deal in this respect. The bi-weekly meetings have given her a sense of purpose and urgency in writing things out well and on time.

I’ve been encouraging her to do creative writing for a change – fiction is something I know she longs to do, but is hesitant about. She likes learning about other people’s experiences, how they do things and what motivates them, so I got this book for her when we were last in Singapore – Writing Magic – Creating Stories That Fly by Gail Carson Levine. (She is the author of Ella Enchanted, which won her a Newbery Honor in 1998.)

Levine encourages budding writers to read voraciously and to surround themselves with inspiring words. It isn’t a dry how-to book – it has writing tips and prompts in the book peppered with the author’s personal thoughts and experiences. Marz loved reading not only about the creative process, but about the significant incidents in Levine’s that shaped her as writer. She especially identified with the part where she says that there is always a niggling voice of doubt in her that tells her that her writing is not good enough. (I tell you, this girl is really her mama’s daughter!)

Writing Magic shows how one can get ideas for a story as well as how to develop and revise it. It guides writers on how to add details and dialogue and appropriate use of words. It even gives some advice on how one can sell one’s work. Levine is quick to show becoming a writer is not a bed of roses – she herself has had work rejected. However, these are setbacks that can help a writer grow further.

Levine writes in a personable way that really reaches out to her readers. She tells them not to throw any of their work away or to abandon ship when the going gets tough. She is encouraging and takes her readers’ dream seriously and helps them believe in themselves. I like that this book has fired Marz up – she looks forward to tackling the exercises and spends a great deal of time plotting out her stories.

This book is a gem for us. If you’ve read or used this book, I’d like to know how you and your children found it :)

Alhamdulillah, Sister Shamima Rasoolbhoy has allowed me to reproduce some of the stories from her egroup Kids Islamic Stories.

Please note: All stories can be printed and used at home and in classrooms for non-commercial purposes only. This document may be distributed in any form, as long as there is no charge. Please give due credit to the author(s) and Kids Islamic Stories without alteration or omission.

The Mad Fence
a folktale rewritten by Norma Tarazi

Once there was and once there wasn’t, a long time ago, a young boy named Tariq with a VERY bad temper. When his mother called him to get up for school in the morning, he would yell at her, “I’m up! Leave me alone!” even though he had just opened his eyes.

If he wanted spaghetti when his mother made macaroni and cheese, he would get mad at her for not asking him before cooking.

When his little sister accidentally touched his toys he would yell at her. Always. He HATED it when someone touched HIS stuff, especially his sister.

When his friend missed the ball in a soccer game and their team lost, he yelled really bad words and his friend decided not to be friends with him anymore. Well, it WAS all his friend’s fault anyway, and who needs friends!

His father was a sailor and left home often to sail on ships around the world. He wasn’t home a lot. One day, his father came home from a long trip while Tariq was working on a model ship on the table. His father roared out “As salaamu `alaikum, I’m home!” and his mother and little sister came running happily from the back rooms to greet him. A gust of wind from the open door blew down the newly glued mast of Tariq’s model ship. Tariq screamed in rage. “Shut that door! You’ve just ruined my model!”

Tariq’s father, mother, and little sister stared at him in shock. Everyone stayed away from Tariq for a while, while Tariq’s father had coffee and talked with his wife and daughter. There was lots of news of the family to catch up on.

Then, when Tariq’s mother went to start supper, Tariq’s father called him out to the storage shed in the back yard.

“Tariq, see these nails? See this hammer? I want you to take a nail to the back fence and hammer it in, for getting mad about the breeze disturbing your model earlier today. And from now on, I want you to pound in a nail each time you get angry.”

Tariq didn’t understand why he should hammer a nail, but he did as his father ordered. It was hard to hit the nail square on the head, and once he hit his finger instead of the nail. He got mad at the hammer and threw it across the yard. Tariq’s father made him nail in another nail, for throwing the hammer in rage.

The next morning, Tariq was almost late to school because he had to hammer in 5 nails for yelling at his mother, father, and sister for 5 different reasons before breakfast. By the end of the day he had hammered in 37 nails, and he was pretty tired of hammering. He was getting better about not hitting his fingers though.

Day by day, Tariq hammered nails. Why did his father insist on it? Looking at the fence, with its many nails, Tariq was embarrassed by all the proof of his bad deeds.

Some of the kids from school knew about the fence, because he accidentally told them. They called it the “Mad Fence”. They asked many times to come and see it but Tariq wouldn’t show it to them. But little by little, he found that the thought of the fence made it easier to hold his tongue and he gradually began to yell less often, and when he yelled, he was able to stop more quickly.

Then, one evening, he was building a block castle and his sister, who had come over to watch, dropped her stuffed bunny on the blocks, making the whole thing come down. Tariq stood up quickly, took a big breath to yell, and, instead of saying something mad, suddenly burst out, “OK, I’ll get a nail!”

His father came out to the fence as Tariq pounded in the new nail. They talked about how he was pounding in fewer nails now. He had made great progress. He was even starting to have some friends again. Friends were nice to have! That was slow going though, because they remembered how mad he used to get and didn’t trust him yet.

“I’m glad I don’t have to pound so many nails anymore, Dad. Seeing all the nails in the fence is ugly.”

Then his father suggested that Tariq could remove a nail each day that he went all day without losing his temper. Day by day Tariq, looked forward to removing a nail from the fence before Isha prayer. It was often difficult to pull them out and he had to struggle, but it felt good to remove the signs of his bad deeds.

Finally, the day came when he removed the last nail. He called his family to witness the great event. He felt very proud.

His mother was so happy, she kissed him and promised to make his favorite dessert for after supper.

His father, however, said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say, ‘I’m sorry’. The wound is still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.”

The family stared at the fence solemnly. It was a witness of Tariq’s battle with himself. Then his father hugged him and said, “May you grow to be a strong man, Son.”

The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, “The strong is not the one who overcomes people by his strength, but the strong is the one who controls himself while in anger.” (Bukhari)

I like listening to stories… the longer the better. :) One of the things that I hope to do in shaa Allah is to retell stories from the Qur’an, Hadeeth and other books of Islamic history to Marz. We have to take the cue from Islam’s rich oral history to know that lessons, stories and poetry, however complex can inspire and endure.

I spoke about the cuddle factor earlier. When we take the time to sit with our children and make the effort to make the stories mesmerizing, we are really creating a loving atmosphere… we are bonding with them and telling them that they matter.

Storytelling can be a wonderfully creative experience for both the storyteller and the listener. The narrator does have a challenging task – she would need to find or create stories that BEG to be told and then weave a web of delight through powerful language and colourful expressions.

The listener learns about the joy of making inner journeys – there is no limit as to where her imagination can take her. She learns how words can move. She learns how listening is important. She learns to read into details and to look for subtle cues and nuances. In short, she learns about the art of communication.

I am still new at this, but the little I have done has inspired me. In shaa Allah I’ll try to include some Islamic stories here that you can try with your kids – one I’ve started with is The Leper, the Bald Man & the Blind Man from Sahih al-Bukhari.

Get comfy… snuggle up with your kid and let the story transport you…

I don’t normally like posting things that I receive from mailing lists but this seems quite interesting and would make a good lesson for kids too.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water. In the first, she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, “Tell me what do you see?” “Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied. She brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they had gotten soft. She then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, she asked her to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma, and then asked, “What’s the point, Mother?”

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity – boiling water – but each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.

The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior. But, after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

Think of this: Which am I?

• Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?
• Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart?
• Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor.

If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hours are the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate to another level? How do you handle adversity?