Tamara Bower, an archaeological illustrator who trained at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, here presents a picture-book adaptation of the story of 'The Shipwrecked Sailor,' originally found in an Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic scroll from the 19th century BCE. Setting out on a voyage down the Red Sea, the sailor's ship sinks in a storm, and he himself washes up on the Island of the Soul. Here he is befriended by a massive serpent, the Prince of Punt, who aids him during the course of his four months on the island. Eventually he is rescued by another Egyptian ship, and carries home many rich gifts for Pharaoh...

The original full story of the shipwrecked sailor can be found both in Miriam Lichtheim's Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms, as well as John L. Foster's Ancient Egyptian Literature: An Anthology. Bower's presentation is engaging, pairing her retelling with illustrations done in an Egyptian style. Every other page or so, a phrase in hieroglyphs is shown, with a literal translation. The back matter includes a note about the story, an explanation of the symbolism embedded in the illustrations, a note about hieroglyphs, and a list of further reading. All in all, this was a lovely children's version of an ancient story, one not well known in the modern world. Reading it made me want to pick up a larger anthology of ancient Egyptian writing - perhaps one of the two mentioned above. It also made me aware of the dearth of good children's books on the subject. I see that Bower herself has penned two others - How the Amazon Queen Fought the Prince of Egypt and The Mummy Makers of Egypt - I will have to see about tracking those down as well. ( )

This book was about a ship returning to Egypt who had 120 sailors on it but it got shipwrecked and only one person survived and got cast on an island shore. It was a lush island that had food every where and it seemed like paradise until a serpent came along and wanted to know where he came from. He told the serpent his story and the serpent had the same thing happen to him so they both kept each company and became friends until he was rescued four months later as the serpent predicted. This book was a culturally generic book but it was interesting to read as it showed a map of Egypt towards the end to show where the ship was traveling to and it also showed hieroglyphs of some words at the top or bottom of almost every page. I would extend this book by having the serpent elaborate on his story of how he lost his family. Another extension idea would be how they spent the four months together on the island.

A realistic tale part of Egypt's folklore, based in a real historical event. A papyrus is found in the nineteenth century BCE, with the mystic tale of a voyager who navigated the Red Sea in search of gold to discovered through a snake's revelation, he is the Prince of Punt Island. Ancient Art stamped with hieroglyphs, makes u travel in time to the past, in an arid landscape, with some fantasy elements like the giant snake, and symbols representing this ancient civilization. Fourth and Fifth graders could benefit from learning the subject, as well as learning about the translation of symbols well incorporated in the book with a special highlighter, as part of the design. A mix of surrealism and fantasy worth sharing.

In this book by Tamara Bower, the classic Egyptian text "The Shipwrecked Sailor" is translated into a cute story suitable for children. It is not especially faithful to the original text--a fair amount of the most tragic parts are neatened up, and some of the original framing device that points to the unreliability of the narrator is left out entirely--but faithfulness to the original is not its intended purpose.

The short segments of original hieroglyphs and their phonetic transliteration/English translation should be of interest to anyone curious about how hieroglyphs are written but have no background in the subject. The illustrations are bright and colorful and clearly evocative of Egyptian relief carvings.

I'll admit I prefer John L. Foster's version of the story because it is more faithful to the original and includes the original text as well, but this is definitely the better of the two for people seeking books for younger children. Either way, "The Shipwrecked Sailor" is an excellent introduction to world literature for people interested in authentic fairy stories and tall tales from the ancient and non-Western world. ( )

Egyptian folktale which depicts a young sailor who gets shipwrecked on a magic island. The sailor befriends a golden serpent who teaches him the beauty of friendship.