Psychologist Valerie Tarico and acclaimed artist Tony Troy weave a tapestry of ten timeless folktales and create a world in which ideas – Deas – literally come to life. In this magical and morally challenging world, hard-won lessons are taught by trolls, animal guides, menacing interlopers, and magi who guide young heroes and heroines to safety … but only after an adventure which teaches essential and timeless values: hope, perseverance, empathy, honor, courage, compassion, and love.
This poignant collection, originally composed by Dr. Tarico for her own children, is mesmerizing young and old readers alike. Written in the style of traditional wisdom tales, these stories have layers of meaning that are fun and accessible to children, gratifying to adults, and inspirational to both.
Somewhere between zen and folktales, somewhere between child’s play and wisdom, somewhere between dreaming the world and healing it. Read these stories aloud – to your child, to your love, or to yourself beneath a sacred tree.
Hardback, 120p. Full color. From the Publisher – $23.95, includes shipping. Also available at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble and as an ebook.
From Deas and Other Imaginings
The Message
In a single room with no window and a sagging plank door that scraped the stone threshold, off of a dark alley too narrow for carts, a girl lived with her widowed mother. The mother took in mending, spending her days in a chair in the doorway, bent over a darning bob and an old sock or a needle and an open seam or a patch fitted carefully to yet another pair of trousers with gaping knees.
The clothes she mended were worn, often threadbare, for those were hard times and the neighbors had little more than the woman and child. But she mended them carefully as if they were treasured garments, nearly new, torn by some quirk accident rather than the steady grind of hard work. “Someday,” she said to her daughter. “Someday I will be a seamstress and you will help me cut cloth from heavy bolts of linen and wool and bright folds of silk from faraway lands. We will lay them out in a sunny room with a long table, and the breeze from the sea will dance through our window and muss the fabric if we forget to weight it with stones.”
Praise for Deas:
“Children develop a unique empathy and appreciation for ethical principles by identifying with characters in favorite stories. With luminous visual imagery and ingenious narrative dexterity, Tarico gives us stories about the development of universal wisdom. Her captivating characters – who are often children coming of age – discover essential life truths from their myriad experiences. They wrestle with extreme hardship, greed, hubris, narrow-mindedness, and vanity. Assisted by compassionate elders and their own evolving moral compasses, they learn to care for the vulnerable, face adversity with courage, and value humanitarianism in their communities.”
–Laura S. Kastner, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington, and co-author of Getting to Calm: Cool-Headed Strategies for Parenting Tweens and Teens, The Launching Years: Strategies for Parenting from Senior Year to College Life, The Seven Year Stretch: How Families Work Together to Grow Through Adolescence, and Wise Minded Parenting.
“You’ll want to read this lyrical book of parables while sitting in the grass under your favorite shade tree or curled up before a roaring fire. You’ll need to read it when life is hard and you begin to lose your way. Deas is a gift of the heart that speaks to the soul.”
–Bobbi Carducci, Executive Director of Young Voices Foundation, President of Community Voices Media, LLC, author of award-winning short stories, and creator of the Story Writer children’s book series.
AwayPoint 