TEHRAN -- Children’s book author Mehdi Azar Yazdi will be honored by the 23rd International Film Festival for Children and Young Adults in August.

The event is scheduled to be held in Hamedan, home to Avicenna’s tomb, from August 2 to 6.
He is most famous for his celebrated book series “Good Stories for Good Children”, which won a UNESCO prize in 1966 and was selected as Iran’s best book of the year in 1967.
Written in eight volumes, “Good Stories for Good Children” provides access to the great works of Persian literature like the Gulistan (The Rose Garden), Masnavi-ye 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, 88, began writing for children in 1956. He has written seven books, each of which is adapted from a classic of Persian literature and rewritten for children in an easy-to-understand style.
He is also author of “Adam,” which was chosen as Iran’s best book of the year in 1968.
“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 held by the Iranian Luminaries Association in February 2007 to honor him.
“I was 35 when I began writing ‘Good Stories for Good Children’… I was not familiar with children’s spirit, and my personal experiences were my criteria for my description of childhood in the stories,” he added.
“When I was 35 years old I left Yazd (his homeland) and afterward began reading ‘Kalilah and Dimnah’, which is very heavy. 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. Thus I wrote ‘Good Stories for Good Children’,” he said.
Two weeks ago, Azar Yazdi underwent surgery on his left foot at Tehran’s Atieh Hospital following a car accident.
He is currently admitted to Yazd’s Seyyed u-Shohada Hospital for lung sepsis.
Photo: Children’s book author Mehdi Azar Yazdi rests at his office in Yazd in an undated photo. (ISNA/Mona Hubefekr)