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Africa - Peoples & Places, Middle East - Peoples & Places, Ancient Cultures, Middle East - History, Ancient Egypt - History, Africa - History
Fly on the Wall: Pharaoh's Egypt (Fly on the Wall Series) by Mick Manning — book cover

Fly on the Wall: Pharaoh's Egypt (Fly on the Wall Series)

by Mick Manning, Brita Granstrom
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Overview

Written by the award-winning team of Mick Manning and Brita Granström, Pharaoh’s Egypt evokes the sounds, smells, and textures of ancient Egypt in a fascinating, fact-packed scrapbook format. Readers follow an appealing cast of characters through their everyday lives, both at work and at play. Children learn all about the Egyptian way of life as they meet the noble and majestic Pharaoh, watch the scribes at work in the palace, delve deep into the tombs, and witness worshippers at the temples. With flies, sand, and fingerprints plastering the pages, the book vividly brings ancient Egypt and its inhabitants to life.

Synopsis

Written by the award-winning team of Mick Manning and Brita Granström, Pharaoh’s Egypt evokes the sounds, smells, and textures of ancient Egypt in a fascinating, fact-packed scrapbook format. Readers follow an appealing cast of characters through their everyday lives, both at work and at play. Children learn all about the Egyptian way of life as they meet the noble and majestic Pharaoh, watch the scribes at work in the palace, delve deep into the tombs, and witness worshippers at the temples. With flies, sand, and fingerprints plastering the pages, the book vividly brings ancient Egypt and its inhabitants to life.

Kathleen Karr - Children's Literature

The British husband and wife team of writer Manning and illustrator Granstr÷m continue their "Fly on the Wall" historical series for early readers with this offering. It is a sprightly look at Ramesses II's New Kingdom through the eyes of the scribe (writer), Huya, and his twin daughters. Since scribes are in great demand for keeping the kingdom organized, Huya becomes the perfect guide to papyrus making, temple priests and gods, farming, tomb building, mummy making, funerals--and even tomb robbing. These daily events are sandwiched between sunrise and night, when the pharaoh himself ritually sees to the rising of the sun and reads messages from the star gods. Between picture comments and marginal facts, Manning's text contains just the right amount of information to draw youngsters into this fascinating civilization. Granstr÷m's lively watercolors mesh perfectly with the text, bringing the whole to life. A brief glossary and index are appended. 2005, Frances Lincoln/Publishers Group West, Ages 5 to 9.

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Editorials

Children's Literature

The British husband and wife team of writer Manning and illustrator Granstr÷m continue their "Fly on the Wall" historical series for early readers with this offering. It is a sprightly look at Ramesses II's New Kingdom through the eyes of the scribe (writer), Huya, and his twin daughters. Since scribes are in great demand for keeping the kingdom organized, Huya becomes the perfect guide to papyrus making, temple priests and gods, farming, tomb building, mummy making, funerals--and even tomb robbing. These daily events are sandwiched between sunrise and night, when the pharaoh himself ritually sees to the rising of the sun and reads messages from the star gods. Between picture comments and marginal facts, Manning's text contains just the right amount of information to draw youngsters into this fascinating civilization. Granstr÷m's lively watercolors mesh perfectly with the text, bringing the whole to life. A brief glossary and index are appended. 2005, Frances Lincoln/Publishers Group West, Ages 5 to 9.
—Kathleen Karr

School Library Journal

Gr 2-4-In this introduction to ancient Egyptian culture, Manning keeps the text brief, basic, and entertaining while allowing full play to Granstr m's artistic embodiments of the subject at hand. Two-page chapters feature the fictional narrative of a scribe named Huya, whose activities readers follow throughout the book. The chapters consist of a short main paragraph that gives a broad overview of the topic; a series of captionlike sentences printed across the bottoms of the pages that give additional information; and captions and dialogue that curve and curl around and along the objects and people to which they refer. Topics include the role of a scribe, the temple, priests and gods, the Nile, the mummy-makers, and other aspects of life during the reign of Ramesses the Great. Granstr m's characters are slightly pudgy and rounded, depicted-like the settings-with watercolor washes and simple lines. The main paragraphs have been placed on a representation of a rough-edged piece of papyrus. Both text and art employ humor where appropriate: a stoneworker drops a mallet on his foot; Huya gets sick to his stomach at the embalmer's workshop. More information is included in Richard Platt's Egyptian Diary (Candlewick, 2005), but it is for an older audience. Light in tone, perfect both for browsing or reading in its entirety, Pharaoh's Egypt succeeds in bringing an immensely complex subject into focus for early readers.-Coop Renner, Hillside Elementary, El Paso, TX Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A superficial glance at Egyptian society in the time of Rameses II, this layers breezy, hand-written factoids ("Egyptian farmers grow barley and a sort of wheat for food, and flax to make linen clothes.") along with bits of plant or animal matter and swatches of papyrus attached with modern straight pins over sketchy, generic watercolor cartoons. A perfunctory plotline featuring a scribe and his family rising in the morning, going to work, watching a funeral-all of which weakly link the topical spreads, and an index/glossary adds a few additional details. Definitely an also-ran, far back in the pack behind conventional nonfiction, or even such fact/fiction mixes as Richard Platt's Egyptian Diary: The Journal of Nakht (2005). (Nonfiction. 9-11)

Book Details

Published
February 1, 2006
Publisher
Frances Lincoln Children's Books
Pages
36
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9781845071004

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