Extra Reading Diary: Turkish Fairy Tales

Turkish Fairy Tales

I chose this reading because I figured stories about wizards, princes, and fairies would be interesting. The promise of beautiful illustrations was also enticing. There were four stories in the first half of this unit, each with two parts, and they didn't disappoint. The stories were called Fear, The Wizard-Dervish, The Fish-Peri, and The Crow-Peri. I found that all of the stories were very similar and had happy endings, which I enjoyed.

Fear Part 1 & Fear Part 2

I really enjoyed this story, especially because it is so different from the others. The youth has never experienced fear and goes on a quest to find it. He is uncorrupted by the world and doesn't know what he should be scared of, so all of the attempts to scare him fail. I would have thought that a hand reaching from a grave would scare him, but he hasn't watched any movies that portray the living dead as brain eating zombies. For this reason, I am not surprised that the only thing to scare him was when the Sultana placed a sparrow under the lid of his soup.

(The Boy Who Found Fear)

The Wizard-Dervish Part 1 & 2, The Fish-Peri Part 1 & 2, The Crow-Peri Part 1 & 2

All of these stories are so similar that I decided to combine them. Although the characters and stories are different, the plots are essentially the same. The main character of each story ends up befriending an animal, the animal helps them, the animal is changed into a woman, and they are married. The Wizard-Dervish was different only in that the boy is created from the help of a dervish and then must pay the dervish back when he is twenty. Overall, I really enjoyed these stories because they had happy endings. However, I do wish they weren't so similar to each other.