As well as writing such lengthy literary classics as Anna Karenina and War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy turned his hand to writing stories for younger readers. Most of the works in his collection Fables and Fairy Tales, translated here by Leo Wiener, had their seed in primers which Tolstoy wrote for the school which he established in 1849 for peasant children at his country estate, Yasnaya Polyana (Clear Glades). In the huge variety of tales – through a host of kings, hermits, peasants and talking animals – he expounds his clear vision for a more human and socially just society.

Vivi, my new granddaughter

I can’t wait to read this to Vivi. I want to give her a head start not only in reading, but appreciating great literature from all over the world.

And more.

I want her to understand the world and all the wonderful differences it offers if she has the courage to go see. I believe world travel is crucial to properly appreciate your own life. I like to say that it changes your brain chemistry. It changes your life and how you look at your own life and home.

We spend all year thinking about and discussing where we are going next. We have a list of places we want to return to: Seville, Paris, Jerusalem. But there are more places we still have to go to: China, Russia, and next: India and Nepal.

The Places that Surprise You

And there’s always the surprises that you visit, like Tangier, Morocco from which we recently returned. You can see our visit here:

If you haven’t made it overseas yet—go. Find a way. Be brave. It will change your life. We’ve gone to Paris during the strikes. We went to Istanbul during Ramadan. In Granada, which is like a European version of New Orleans because it’s so full of European twenty- and thirty-somethings partying their brains out, we stood at a bar packed full of screaming, drunk Europeans and tasted fried eggplant covered in brown cane syrup. Melinda looked at me after she first tasted it and said through the roar: “It’s worth it.”

Yes it is, Melinda. Yes it is.