Ancient Egypt for Kids

by Oldřich Růžička, Tomáš Tůma

The famous ancient civilization along the Nile River depicted in a novelty format like never before. 2022 is the anniversary year 100 years of the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter!

Over 5‚000 years ago, a civilization developed along the Nile River whose sights and remnants are still enchanting people from all over the world. Huge wonderful pyramids, stone temples, decorated tombs, larger-than-life statues of rulers, tall columns, obelisks, and other memorials can be seen in Egypt wherever you look. Still, many sights are waiting to be freed from the African sands and it remains somewhat mysterious how Egyptian builders could create such towering, beautiful buildings, considering the limited technology of the day. Let’s take a walk together, see the most wonderful Egyptian sights, and learn what life in Ancient Egypt looked like for pharaohs, officials, soldiers, and ordinary people.

12 pages, Hardcover

Published November 22, 2022

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I might have organized this book [2.5 for me] a bit differently, making sure not to repeat certain facts or to amplify others a bit more, the book still holds plenty of possibilities as an introduction to the topic. Most fourth and fifth graders that I've known are fascinated by Egypt and the pyramids and curious about how those massive structures were built, and this book offers some logical reasoning behind how this building was accomplished without today's modern tools. Youngsters will be interested in what some of these buildings most likely looked like during their prime as well as how the weather and age have affected them. They'll also learn about mummification, Egyptian gods, and important sites. While some readers may find the six large folding maps hard to handle, they seem perfectly suited to being laid out on a table and perused by curious eyes. Books like this seem to tantalize youngsters, prompting them to seek out even more information about the topic. Anyone in search of a more immersive and comprehensive exploration of ancient Egypt will be disappointed since this book seems more a collection of interesting factoids separated into colored boxes, which will appeal to some readers. For me, I'd have liked more information about ordinary individuals and the role of women in addition to the Pharaohs.

[Theediscerning · Rating 2 out of 5]

A possible choice for your young students of ancient life and humanities, as this gives us Egypt in a few nice nutshells. It is, however, awkwardly easy to see how an hour’s work would improve things. This is built out of half a dozen maps that fold out in both directions to be four times the area of the book’s actual size. The pain is in seeing the reverse, generally a continuation of the map’s topic, being so repetitive. So the first map is a general look at Egypt and her corner of Africa, peppered by introductory factoids – but the reverse of that tells us about papyrus, wine-making and hieroglyphics in seeming ignorance of the fact it had just done all of that overleaf.

Next we close in on Egypt for the second map, her ancient sites – and then the reverse introduces us to the fact they had temples, having just taken us to several already. Next it’s Luxor, pyramids – both in general and at Giza – and the Valley of the Kings. And I’ve never really needed to know the layout of that hot spot of antiquity, meaning it’s not really the most useful or vital thing for a young mind. The fact it’s only the last page, having covered tomb after temple after pyramid etc etc, that tells us the Egyptians believed in the afterlife, shows this really doesn’t have its priorities quite right. And in detailing “clothes” and much later “women’s clothes” shows casual sexism. Oh, and zero comedic quality in the cartoon speech bubbles. Not a huge success.

[Erin Buhr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a ton of information about certain aspects of Ancient Egypt. The illustrations throughout help to expand your knowledge and break up the information. My kids were primarily fascinated by the pyramids of Egypt and this book had so much information we didn't read in other places. Each section has a spread and then a double spread that folds out. The one on the pyramids was our favorite. A great resources for kids interested in Ancient Egypt.

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss.

[PottWab Regional Library]

SM