Pharaoh's Boat

For the young reader who has approached you asking for a book about Ancient Egypt and heiroglyphics, Pharaoh's Boat is an unusual find. Author/illustrtor David Weitzman claims to have had the same fascination as a child, and has written a compelling informational text that wholistically involves

Show More

the reader with a fascinating story, using beautifully detailed narrative illustrations and diagrams, and mysterious heiroglyphic designs in varied colorful patterns. With simple language, the chronicle details the ancient construction and burial of the death ships of Cheops, and then centuries later the discovery of one of them by Egyptologist Kamel el Mallakh, and the meticulous restoration of the vessel by Ahmed Youssef Moustafa. The large landscape format of the book, which extends folded pages at one point to double the panorama, gives a spaciousness for illustrated diagrams and text to complement each other and deepen the understanding of the reader. This is not an introduction to ancient Egypt, but would be of interest to readers who already have some background knowledge of the culture and seek to know more. It is unique in its connection of this particular ancient event to personal stories of modern archeologists. Highly recommended for large collections, optional purchase for those not needing works on this topic. ( )

Show Less

Pharoah's Boat by David WeitzmanIn 1954, a crew of men found a secret wall. As they began to dig at the wall, they were amazed to discover a boat built almost 4,600 years ago.This book is the story of the unearthing of that boat, the process the men went through to rebuild it, and the amazing

Show More

patience of the leader of the men.I don't know why, but books like these go right over my head. Lots and lots of things were unclear to me, but it may just be my own lack of understanding.An example: "The rope lashing did more than just hold the hull together. When sewn ships like this were launched, the wood soaked up water like a sponge and expanded. At the same time, the rope shrank as it got wet, pulling the planks together and closing any little spaces between them to make the ship watertight."

Show Less

Weitzman, D. (2009). Pharaoh's Boat. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children.

Appetizer: The pharaoh Cheops had died and must be properly sent into the afterlife to the sun god, Re. Weitzman shares the process that the Ancient Egyptians went through to prepare Cheops's boat. Contrasting this,

Show More

Weitzman also shares how the space where the ancient Egyptians stored the boats was discovered in the 1950s and how Ahmed Youssef Moustafa worked to restore the boat.

Wietzman is very thorough, showing each step of the boat building process, the tools used and the reasons why the boats were designed the way they were.

I liked how he showed the parallels of the Egyptian workers building the boat and how Moustafa and his staff reconstructed it. I do wish that these scenes had been shown back and forth instead of telling one story and then the later one. I think it would have been more powerful to go back and forth for regularly (Although, there is one page where Moustafa works on one end and an Ancient Egyptian worker does his thing on the other side).

While thorough, I have to admit, I kinda-sorta lost interest in reading the text as it went on. While part of my problem was how text-heavy this picturebook was, my main issue was the fact that the story didn't follow any specific or well-developed character.
Instead, the narrative consisted of "The shipbuilders did this...Then the shipbuilders did that...." And although important, Moustafa wasn't really a character that children will relate to immediately. I did, however, like that there were foldout pages and a lot of direct quotes by Moustafa (That guy was eloquent!).

The illustrations are striking, because they're done in the style of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. There's also a clear distinction to those that were done to represent the 1950s (and on) when Moustafa was doing his work.

Dinner Conversation:

"In 1954, workmen began clearing away tongs of windblown sand and rubble that had piled up against the south face of the Great Pyramid at Giza. As they dug, there suddenly appeared an old stone boundary wall. Strange. They weren't expecting to find a wall here."

"The ancient shipwrights fashioned huge, sleek ships from the trunks and branches with a few simple bronze tools."

"Cheops would soon be making his last journey in the world, from his palace at Thebes down the Nile to his pyramid tomb at Giza, where his boats would be waiting for him."

"Ahmed Youssef Moustafa, chief of the Restoration Department of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, was chosen to direct the recovery, preservation and reconstruction of the huge ancient ship--an almost impossible task that no one had ever undertaken before."

To Go with the Meal:

This book can trigger deeper discussions of Ancient Egyptian culture, religion, geography, the flow of the Nile, and the work of archaeologists and restorationists. The book can also trigger a fair number of research projects--whether into subjects like Egyptian archaeology, mummification, religion or the process of different types of boat construction.

A teacher could also focus on the way the past is still alive and influencing the present.

This is a good book to honestly show the work of Archaeologists without, you know, mummies coming alive and interrupting them.

Tasty Rating: !!!

Show Less

Beautifully illustrated, this book teaches about ancient Egyptian culture through the story of one ship's creation and rediscovery. Can be read to a class of young children, or used individually as a part of a unit on ancient Egyptian culture. No citations or references are offered so it may not be

Show More

a good book to use alone, but its vivid pictures and well written story make it a worthwhile read in conjunction with other works. I may use this story to give my students an example of how they can write their own stories incorporating real historical information.

Show Less

Review: "Pharaoh's Boat" is an informative story about one of the greatest ships built in the Ancient World. In this book, the reader is taken step by step into the process of how and exactly why this gigantic boat was built. Details about the craftsmanship of this vessel and the journey's that it

Show More

encountered are captivating and extremely descriptive.

Genre: Informational

Show Less

This picture book details many aspect of egyptian lifestyle as the story unravels. For myself I would not see my self using this book with young children because it did not hold my attention and I doubt it would hold a child's.

This book follows an Egyptologists quest in recreating a great Egyptian ship. The author describes Egyptian history related to shipbuilding and religious and cultural beliefs. The illustrations are done in the style of hieroglyphics and technical drawings show tools of the trade and how different

Show More

parts of the ship were built and put together. They will indeed lend to the readers understanding of the long, intensive process. The book is captivating and the subject matter is awe-inspiring.

Show Less

This informative book informs readers of how Cheops had two boats built for his burial. Explorers later found one of the boats. The boat was next to the pyramind where Cheops was buried. The illustrator does a wonderful job with the drawings of the book. The illustrator made the images look like

Show More

drawings Egyptians used to draw on the pyramid walls. While this book was a bit difficult to read I think students would like to see the pictures.

Show Less

A picture book that is both informational and historical fiction. It tells the story of how Pharaohs were buried and the way that their ancient boats were made.

Pharaoh's book is about the discovery and restoration of a boat found in Pharaoh Cheops' tomb. The author goes to great lengths to explain this process of making the boat and the details of its construction. I found that the author wrote too much about the process which made the book draw on. The

Show More

text became boring after a while, but the illustrations were nice and helped further explain the text.

Show Less

This informational book tells the story of how a ship was built by Egyptians for the Pharaoh.