It takes a little while to get accustomed to the middle eastern style of storytelling and the stories themselves are endlessly repetitive in their themes of sultans and princesses, magic, hoards of treasure, peasants and noblemen etc. But it was good to read the original version of Aladdin, Sinbad the sailor, Ali Baba and the forty thieves etc. without the Disneyfication that we've all grown up with. P.S. At no point does anyone say "open sesame".