pointless and flat. nothing is at stake! rushdie must believe that children cant handle conflict or devastation.. he missed so many opportunities to write a book with any depth. all the silliness and happy resolutions feel cheap and condescending.

Basically, this is a good story for all ages.

Rashid, the Shah of Blah, is a storyteller who has a 12-year old son called Haroun. The Shah of Blah loses his wife to a neighbour and his gift to tell stories. Haroun decides to restore his father's gift of the gab and this book is the tale of what Rashid and Haroun do to bring this about. Someone is polluting the Sea of Stories and this has to be stopped.

Do you think this will happen, dear reader?

Along the way, Haroun and Rashid meet memorable characters, similar to those seen in a good pantomime, all of whom have amusing verbal tics. Step forward Butt the Hoopoe, Mali a floating gardener, and Iff the Water Genie. There are the bad guys too, the Chupwalas and their leader Khattam-Shud.

This is an amusing, clever, and smartly imaginative book, perhaps with a touch of smugness which means it doesn't get 5 stars from me. This book is still recommended though.

3.5*

“What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?”

Read for a university english class. A very whimsical and charming story. I loved the exploration of the fluidity of language, and how language/stories mean different things to different people. It’s obvious that the author put a lot of thought into the novel, as there are so many intricate details to this. The novel is very political, but is camouflaged through humour and a children’s fantastical setting, which I enjoyed a lot.

Perfect children's book for a nine year old, and as it turns out, for older "kids" too, as I thoroughly enjoyed it. This is a book which begs to be read aloud. The imagination, the story, the rhymes, will have you and the kid giggling together. What an unexpected treat.

Never have I ever thought that a children's book could be so smart, so intelligent.

This is not only a children's book but also a social commentary on the plight of the world but I see you Mr. Rushdie, I know you're talking about Kashmir.

Salman Rushdie, story teller extraordinaire, not only weaves the a tale of our social and political situation along with perhaps stories from his personal life. He speaks of feminism, of social injustice, of politicians taking advantage of the system and of the people, of freedom of speech, of how sometimes it's better to let actions speak louder than words, of heart break and depression, of new love and the thrill of it.

A fast read, this is a book I would recommend to everyone - specially those from the Indian subcontinent because I know you'll appreciate and chuckle more. You'll get it.

Harun
Como un cuento fantástico para niños, donde un chico entra a un mundo fantástico, y ayudara a rescatar a la princesa, y evitar que el malvado contamine las aguas de las historias/cuentos.
La forma de narrar de Salman Rushdie es bonita, hace que visualices en tu mente el mundo de la mar de historias y los personajes que ahí aparecen.
Y aunque parece un cuento infantil, por la forma de escribir, vocabulario y algunas temáticas, es más un cuento para adultos que te hace recordar los cuentos infantiles.
Muy bueno
3.5star

Haroun and the sea of stories
Salman Rushdie

Though I stumbled over the book unexpectedly, it was surprisingly refreshing envisioning the entire drama... going back to my childhood days watching mermaids and sea life especially on sundays... it was a bit bewildering in the beginning as I didn’t expect it to be a children’s book... then I realised It was a children’s book!
I changed my perspective and started enjoying it as an enthusiastic 8 years kid. I thoroughly enjoyed the unexpected but much needed break from any serious reading that needed brains. Yes ! you should read kiddo books once in a while to reload your provisions for heavy or hearty reads.
P.S.: this a a lot different from the Salman Rushdie writing Midnight’s Children .

Oh dear. Got to the halfway mark and I'm giving up. I love reading children's books but this one was just too cutesy-wootsey for my taste and I'm puzzled to know who might actually like it. All the characters have annoying names like the Shah of Blah and Snooty Butoo. That might be fine in a ten page picture book but it got wearing in a story that goes on and on for over 200 pages with NO pictures and a horribly convoluted plot. And then there was the negativity and even cynicism that shot through the story--with mothers abandoning their families and children saying just the wrong thing so that their fathers lose their storytelling ability. Ugh! How to give a kid a guilt and anxiety trip. Maybe there was a deep message in there somewhere, but I have too many great books in the TBR pile to waste my time on this.

So far, I'm batting 0 for 2 with Salman Rushdie--I couldn't finish The Satanic Verses, either. He's probably just not my cup of tea.

Content rating: PG for some odd negative messages that I couldn't decode. Parents read it yourself before you read it to your children.

Lui sapeva ciò che sapeva: che il mondo reale era pieno di magia, e che di conseguenza i mondi magici potevano benissimo essere reali.

Una bella e piacevolissima favola sul potere e l'importanza dell'immaginazione e delle storie (di tutte le storie) nella vita di ognuno di noi.
Essendo fondamentalmente un libro per bambini tutto si svolge e risolve in modo molto veloce (un po' troppo, per i miei gusti), ma si percepisce comunque tutta la bravura di narratore di Rushdie, con alcuni suoi tratti caratteristici che emergono anche se, per forza di cose, utilizza uno stile completamente diverso da quello delle sue altre opere.
Con uno sguardo adulto, poi, e non ignaro delle vicende che Rushdie ha dovuto affrontare dopo la pubblicazione de I versi satanici, nel libro si trovano sottintesi e messaggi su temi quali la dittatura e soprattutto la libertà di espressione, che danno al libro una maggiore profondità.

Ma ma ma che senso ha concedere alle persone la Libertà di Parola [...] se poi si dice loro che non devono utilizzarla? E il Potere di Parlare non è forse il più grande? Allora bisogna sicuramente che sia esercitato sino in fondo.

E in realtà un po' tutto, nel libro, è pervaso di significati più o meno nascosti (utilissimo il glossario alla fine, che ci svela come i nomi di molti personaggi non siano affatto casuali, e mi dispiace molto essermene accorta solo alla fine!!), e vengono trattati anche altri temi importanti, se pur proprio di sfuggita (ad esempio le relazioni di coppia e familiari e le conseguenze del divorzio sui figli).
Anche la dedica iniziale, dopo aver scoperto che la fatwa forzò Rushdie a restare lontano dal figlio, e che questo figlio si chiama Zafar... acquista tutto un altro senso.

Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu:
All our dream-worlds may come true.
Fairy lands are fearsome too.
As I wander far from view
Read, and bring me home to you.

È un libro che conserverò gelosamente per quando sarà il momento di leggere favole della buonanotte :)

This is so cute 3,5/5

fever dream.

2 stars.

I read this book Rushdie wrote for his son for a class, and I didn’t love it. Things you should know about this book before going in: it’s a children’s book that deals in nonsense, and it is also absurdism. You could call it fantasy if you wanted to. I’ve heard it called magical realism but I personally wouldn’t say that. It is a book about books.

There’s some strokes of genius with nice moments, but for the most part, I was bored. Absurdism usually works for me, but in this case it didn’t. I found the characters hard to connect to because of how they were written in a way that felt absurd in themselves, and not in a way I liked. I both liked and disliked the ending of this book, and my mixed feelings make it hard to recommend. There is definitely beauty in this book, but it was surrounded by a lot of blah, in my opinion.