TEHRAN -- Iranian children’s book author Mehdi Azar Yazdi, who was mainly known for his “Good Stories for Good Children,” passed away on Thursday of lung sepsis at Tehran’s Atieh Hospital.

In early June, Azar Yazdi underwent surgery on his left foot following a car accident. He recovered from the surgery, but shortly afterwards, he was hospitalized for lung sepsis.
Born in 1921, Azar Yazdi began writing for children in 1956. He wrote seven books, each of which is adapted from a classic of Persian literature and rewritten for children in an easy-to-understand style.
“Good Stories for Good Children” won a UNESCO prize in 1966 and was selected as Iran’s best book of the year in 1967. His book “Adam” was chosen as Iran’s best book of the year in 1968.
“Good Stories for Good Children” was written in eight volumes based on the great works of Persian literature like the Gulistan (The Rose Garden), Masnavi-e Manavi, Marzban-Nameh, Sinbadnameh, and some stories from the Holy Quran and the life of the Prophet Muhammad (S) and his Household (AS).
Azar Yazdi planned to write other volumes for the series.
He was also author of “The Naughty Cat,” “The Playful Cat,” “Simple Stories,” “Poetry of Sugar and Honey” and “Masnavi of Good Children.”
“Encouragement is the main factor that makes a person begin a task and continue it. I had no one encouraging me (when I was young), and my parents taunted me about writing childlike stories,” Azar Yazdi once said during a ceremony was held by the Iranian Luminaries Association to honor him in February 2007.
“When I was 35 years old I left Yazd (his homeland) and afterward began reading ‘Kalilah and Dimnah,’ which is very difficult. However, I found it very beautiful and subsequently decided to write for children. I sought neither fame nor money, I only wanted to do a good job. So I wrote ‘Good Stories for Good Children’,” he said during the ceremony.
Azar Yazdi never married. Once, he was asked the reason for this and he joked, “I could not live with a crazy woman, and if she was a wise woman, she could never live with me!”
However, he is survived by his adopted son Mohammad Saburi, who met Azar Yazdi in 1949.
Mohammad had been referred for employment to a photography house in Yazd where Azar Yazdi used to work.
Azar Yazdi was leaving the store when he came upon the eight-year-old Mohammad weeping after having been rejected by the owner of the business. He adopted him on the advice of one of his friends.
He believed that life owes him something, saying, “I have frequently been only at someone else’s service. I have always economized and have had a hard time of it.
“I never eat well, except at parties or here (at his adopted son’s home in Karaj). I am never well dressed. Some people consider me to be stingy because of my economical ways. When I have no income I have to economize. Thank God, that I have never done evil and never have had a bad reputation.”
The funeral procession is scheduled to begin from the International Quran News Agency in Tehran and he will be laid to rest in the Artists’ Section of Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery.
Photo: Children’s book author Mehdi Azar Yazdi studies at his home in Yazd in an undated photo. (ISNA)