Shahrzad and the Angry King — Nahid Kazemi

A retelling of the Scheherazade story, set in the contemporary world, Shahrzad and the Angry King centers on the scooter-loving, story-loving Shahrzad. One day, Shahrzad sees a boy in the park who she's never seen before. He looks sad, and because she loves stories and therefore always listens to everyone and everything, she asks him to tell her his story. He talks, she listens, and she hears the tale of a country that was peaceful and happy until misery befell its king when his wife died in childbirth. After, the king grows angry and cruel; so much so that the boy must flee with his family. After hearing this story, Shahrzad can't forget it. And so, one day, when she sees a toy airplane in a store, she begins to imagine that she is flying off to the boy's home country, where she confronts the king. Like Scheherazade, she tells the king stories, but this time not to save her own life, but those of the king's people and his own. Because Shahrzad knows the power of the creative imagination and that the stories we tell and the words we use are far more powerful in shaping our world than just about anything else. We live and die by the sword? Not exactly, says Shahrzad. We live or die by the stories we tell and how we see, frame, and word the world.