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crossposted from H-AfrTeach <H-AfrTeach@h-net.msu.edu>
Denise Allard. _The Egyptians_. Pictures of the Past Series.
Milwaukee: Gareth Stevens, 1997. 32 pp. Illustrations, map,
bibliographical references, and index. $18.60 (cloth), ISBN
0-8368-1714-1.
Reviewed for H-AfrTeach by Alexandra O'Brien
<a-obrien@uchicago.edu>, University of Chicago
The civilization of ancient Egypt flourished along the River
Nile for around three millennia. Egyptian culture is relatively
well known to us due to the survival of many written records and
the wealth of goods and painted scenes discovered in tombs. This
book gives a brief introduction to several aspects of this
civilization. It is presented in the form of one-page
descriptions, accompanied by an illustration, under the
following headings: Egypt, Long Ago, At Home, Children and
Work, Writing, Farming, The Nile River, In Towns, Making Items
(what's wrong with the word "things"?), Parties, Games and
Sports, A New Life, Pyramids, Gods and Goddesses,
Books/Videos/Web sites, Index.
With the exception of the map and photograph of the Great
Pyramid and Sphinx accompanying "Long Ago," the illustrations
are paintings similar to Egyptian tomb scenes.
The positive things I can say about this book are that the
illustrations are attractive and look like Egyptian tomb
scenes. The print is large and clear, and the language
straightforward. This book is appropriate for primary school
children.
Some of the pictures include information not in the written
descriptions. This is particularly the case with the map
("Egypt") which includes locations not mentioned elsewhere
(Western Desert, Giza, Thebes and Eastern Desert) and the scene
accompanying "In Town," where the idea of "trade" (i.e. buying
things by barter rather than with money), may need more
explanation than is given. The latter scene includes people
making mud bricks and hoeing, activities more suited to the
countryside or edge of town rather than a town centre. I
realise that the intention is to pack in a lot of information in
a very small book, but here I feel it would be more helpful to
the child to have a busy market scene with a variety of goods
and people.
The description of "Writing" is inadequate. It is true that
the Egyptian writing is not alphabetic but to describe it as
"small pictures" perpetuates the notion of Egyptian writing
being mystical and esoteric. It is not. It works much like many
other non-alphabetic languages such as Chinese, Akkadian,
Sumerian and others. It wouldn't take any longer for a speaker
of those languages to learn to write it than a speaker of an
alphabetically written language to learn to write with facility
and skill. A sample of Egyptian writing should have been
illustrated here also.
In "Farming" we are told that the ancient Egyptians "grew
vegetables and fruits" while there is a picture of workers
harvesting grain. Grain was always Egypt's most important crop
and her chief export to Rome and should have been mentioned in
the text. It is nice to see that in this book slaves are not
mentioned in the page on pyramids: a small step in countering
the foundless notion of Jewish slaves building these royal
tombs.
The end matter was added by the U.S. publisher. The page "Gods
and Goddesses" is a good summary of the major Egyptian gods.
However, it is much more complex than the rest of the book and
seems out of place. None of the gods are mentioned elsewhere in
the book. There is no glossary of terms which one might expect
here.
The last page is a "further reading" list of books, videos and
web sites. I was unable to find one of these books in Books in
Print (_Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt_ by Anne Pearson
[Watts]). The citations of the suggested books are insufficient
and would be hard for a parent or teacher to find: date of
publication and ISBNs should have been included. The two web
sites suggested are inappropriate. The first
(www.seas.upenn.edu/%7Eahm/history.htm) is a page aimed at
parents, encouraging them to teach history (in general) at home.
The second page (www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/History/Home.html) is
an index of sites on Ancient Egypt, but sites for adults. There
are several web-sites on ancient Egypt aimed at children, why
not include those here? I have many indexed at:
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/DEPT/RA/ABZU/YOUTH_RESOURCES.HTML
including Rosetta Stone:
http://www.clemusart.com/archive/pharaoh/rosetta/index.html and
Odessey On-line: http://www.emory.edu/CARLOS/ODYSSEY/
If I were a school librarian or parent with $18.60 to spend on a
book for kids about ancient Egypt, I should spend it on something
else, such as Rosalie David's _Growing Up in Ancient Egypt_, George
Hart's _Ancient Egypt_ (Eyewitness Book #23) or Geraldine Harris'
_Ancient Egypt (Cultural Atlas for Young People)_.[1]
Notes:
[1]. Rosalie David. _Growing up in Ancient Egypt_. Growing
Up In. Mahwah: Troll Communications, 1997. 32 pp.
Illustrations. $4.95 (paper), ISBN 0-816-72718-X.
George Hart. _Ancient Egypt_. Eyewitness Books (No. 23). New
York: Knopf, distributed by Random House, 1990. 64 pp.
Illustrations. $19.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-679-80742-X.
Geraldine Harris. _Ancient Egypt_. Cultural Atlas for Young
People. New York: Facts on File, 1990. 96 pp.
Illustrations. $17.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8160-1971-1.
Copyright (c) 1998 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work
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