5th meeting

Our today's story - "The Fisherman and His Wife" from "The Brave Little Taylor and Other Stories" by the Brothers Grimm

Again it was Wednesday, again we came together for another meeting of our Bookworms club. As we sat down on the carpet and got ready to listen to the story, Umm Uzair asked us, what we call at home our mothers. It turned out that some of us call our mothers "mamma", while others use "ummi". Then, Umm Uzair asked us, what kind of things do we usually ask our mothers to do for us or give us. Surprisingly, nearly all the answers steered into the same direction - that of sweets and snacks! As we talked, we realized that as soon as we had got something we asked for, we had in our mind already the next thing we wanted to have... and the list could go on and on. We had to admit that we ask our mothers for all kinds of things about thousand times per day. :) Umm Uzair asked us to think about what our mothers might be feeling, when they have to attend to so many requests.

When Umm Uzair opened the book to read the story, she said that she wasn't feeling very well - she had a sore throat. On hearing that, right away two volunteers offered their help for reading the story out aloud. So it was decided that Uzair would read the first part of the story, and Isa would read the second part of it. Umm Uzair told us that all the stories in this book are written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, two German brothers, who lived some centuries ago. She also told us that the brothers Grimm are very famous all over the world due to the nice childrens' stories they have written.

This time, the story was about a poor fisherman and his wife Ilsa. One day, the fisherman caught an enormous fish, which turned out to be a prince under a magic spell. Since he couldn't eat a prince, he let it back in the sea. On hearing this, his wife Ilsa became angry and sent him to request some present from the prince - she wanted to have a cottage to live in. However, once she had got the cottage, she wanted a palace; once she got a palace, she wanted to be a king; once she became a king, she wanted to be an emperor... her list of wishes seemed to have no limts. Her last wish was that of wanting to be like God - so she could make the sun and the moon rise! Can you believe that? This wish really upset the fish prince, and he took away from her all the things he had given her - she was back in her poor house once again...

We learned from this story that we should always be thankful to Allah (swt) for the things that we have. We realized that if we kept on wishing for more things, our list of wishes woul never end and we would never feel happy. Umm Uzair encouraged us always to look at people, who are in less fortunate situation than ourselves, instead of looking at people, who are richer and have more things.

After the story, we made our very own fish princes. Umm Uzair said to us to keep these fishes as reminders to be happy with what we have and say thanks to Allah (swt) for all the wonderful things He (swt) has given us.