Tales from the Arabian Nights Audiobook By Donna Jo Napoli cover art

Tales from the Arabian Nights

Stories of Adventure, Magic, Love, and Betrayal

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Tales from the Arabian Nights

By: Donna Jo Napoli
Narrated by: Christina Moore
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Classic stories of princesses, kings, sailors, and genies come to life in a stunning retelling of the Arabian folk tales from One Thousand and One Nights and other collections, including those of Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. The magical storytelling of award-winning author Donna Jo Napoli dramatizes these timeless tales and ignites children's' imaginations.

Donna Jo Napoli is professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, mother of five, grandmother of five, and the author of more than 80 books for children and young adults. While her undergraduate major was mathematics and her graduate work was in linguistics, she has a profound love of mythology, folklore, and fairy tales.

©2016 Donna Jo Napoli (P)2016 Recorded Books Action & Adventure Classics Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths Literature & Fiction
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Absolutely fantastic! Wonderful flow of narrative. Narration by Christina Moore was excellent! Highly recommend.

High Praise

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Great narration, minor artistic license taken to help stories flow better. Good for adults and children.

Very entertaining

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My daughter and I enjoyed listening to the stories within a story during long car rides, we marveled at the lavish story telling. A must read!

A FREE must read for adults and children

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wonderfully told however I do wish the educational sections didn't enterupt the story line. despite the minor enteruptions the narrative keeps one captured

beautiful rendition of a classical story

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I knew the Titel since my childhood, but not the content. I enjoyed this introduction together with the background information and nearly missed an appointment to listen to the very end. Good for every age group.

Educational and enjoyable

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What a lovely experience. I read this at least 25 years ago and am so glad I decided to listen to this rendition.

Arabian nights

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First off, the actual tales and their narration is fabulous. The problem is the way the story of Scheherazade weaves through every. single. chapter. We all know the general story--a king marries a new girl every day and kills her the next morning--this is problematic on every possible level. Most versions of the 1001 Nights deal with that highly disturbing story by sharing it upfront, then moving on and telling the 1001 tales. Not so this version. For every 4 or 5 minutes of story, we get another 1-2 minutes about the sun rising or setting and for Scheherazade to ponder her relationship with her husband and fear for her life. In print, we could have skipped that, but as an audiobook, that flaw was fatal for both young listeners and adults.

But not only that, the interludes are disturbing. We get way too much detail. For example:

Scheherazade taking a potion not to get pregnant, then throwing the potion out the window and having 3 pregnancies; we are treated to details about the size of her belly and even the delivery of one of her babies!

We get comments from the king: "I look forward to the time we spend together tonight, before your story (wink, wink)," and are made privy to the fact that "The king had kissed her many times before, but she had never kissed him back." Just...ewww.

This man is a contender for the most evil and abusive character in literature. But every few minutes, the writers want to remind us that yes, not only is Scheherazade terrified for her life, the king is having a physical relationship with her.

The story tries to redeem the king—"her poor husband, he didn't know how to trust." That does not fly for this 21st century parent. Yes, the story of Scheherazade is a classic and I don't think it should be sanitized. But if you're going to tell it, acknowledge its faults rather than go with the "abusive tyrant suddenly becomes a loving husband" narrative. That is not a message I want to glorify.

It's a pity because the tales are so well done and the narration is wonderful. In print, I could have skipped what I had problems with. As an audiobook, this just failed.

Wonderful tales bogged down by interruptions

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