Extract from Wikipedia entry for Alice Geer Kelsey
"Alice Geer Kelsey (September 21, 1896 – September 1982) was an American writer of children's books, many of which were based on folk tales she collected during her long public service career in Europe and the Near East.
Alice Geer was born in Danvers, Massachusetts, and grew up in Lewiston, Maine, and West Hartford, Connecticut. She received her B.A. in history from Mount Holyoke College in 1918. In 1919, she married Lincoln David Kelsey and immediately thereafter left on the second boat taking relief workers to the Near East after World War I. She worked with war orphans at Merzifoun, Turkey, and collected the stories retold in Once the Hodja."
Once the Hodja was reviewed in the New York Times, January 16, 1944, P.58, under headline "Three New Stories for Younger Readers," with illustration from the book.
"THERE is something stabilizing and refreshing in the thought that the child's perennial and joyous interest in folktales of all nations provides a common bond and an experience shared in all parts of this bewildered, warring world. Boys and girls of present-day America chuckle delightedly over these century-old tales from Turkey about Nasr-ed-Din, the simple-minded country fellow whose talent for getting himself into trouble was only exceeded by his ability to get himself out again, just as they laugh at the outrageous pranks of the medieval Till Eulenspiegel, who in his adroitness in turning the tables on those who tricked or opposed him has more than a little kinship with this Turkish teacher-priest to whose name the honorary title “Hodja" was attached.
Sometimes it is the Hodja's own simplicity that supplies the fun, as when he fails again and again to count correctly the donkeys in his charge; sometimes it is his ready wit in turning a situation to his own advantage, but whether he cheats himself or fools another, there is always spontaneous humor, good-natured fun and a background of shrewd common sense in these tales which Alice Geer Kelsey has selected from the hundreds of Hodja stories known and loved by Turks old and young. She has retold them with sympathy and affection and a sound knowledge of Turkish life. The illustrator, like the author, has lived in Turkey and his drawings give a feeling of the country and catch the friendly humor of the Hodja's adventures."