This book is sort of the Arabian Nights + Princess Bride, with a little Alice in Wonderland thrown into the mix.  When Rashid, a storyteller known as the Shah of Blah, loses the ability to tell stories, his son Haroun sets out to find out what has happened.  With the help of Iff the Water Genie and a cast of colorful characters he finds out that forces of Darkness are polluting the Sea of Stories.

It's all a thinly veiled allegory for Islam trying to silence the author after his Satanic Verses was published, but it's deftly handled & often quite amusing.  Rushdie does an especially nice job with word plays & puns & the book requires rereading & reading aloud to catch them all, which makes it a perfect book for adults to read to older kids.

(Reviewed:)

Grade: (B) Orrin C. Judd

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