Muslim Pupils, Children’s Fiction and Personal Understanding

Stories are a widespread if problematic pedagogical tool. Authors express their values, often more materialistic than spiritual and often bizarre. Our question in this artricle is how stories can assist children’s personal understanding, focusing particularly on Muslim children. We discuss stories written by the authors, for educational purposes with sample stories available on-line. We conclude that writing stories for educational purposes can bring to life for children the experiences which they encounter, the choices they have to make, and their relationships with others around them. Stories encourage discussion, role-play and story-writing which can make real the nature of community and citizenship.