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It turns out that an enslaved boy and hundreds of other people spent more than six hundred days carving the Needle out of stone and pulling it upright.
And another kid's drawings were used to create the hieroglyphs on its sides.
And a girl tried sabotage to keep the Needle from leaving its home in Egypt—sabotage that nearly worked.
And a boy stowed away on the trip the Needle took across the Atlantic Ocean—and when the ship nearly sank, it was the boy who saved everyone on board.
And when the Needle finally made it to New York City, it became a sensation ... but almost got stuck just a few miles from its destination.
This thrilling story is told through the eyes of five kids who were there every step of the way. But only best-selling author Dan Gutman could blend fact and fiction to tell it. Reading The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra's Needle is like watching a movie ... a movie that will have you on the edge of your seat.
This audiobook is narrated by Amin El Gamal, Michael Rahhal, Samara Naeymi, Alex Wingfield, Mark Sanderlin, and Laura Knight Keating.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
June 28, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9798892742344
- File size: 101191 KB
- Duration: 03:30:48
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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March 18, 2024
Employing even keeled pacing and distinctively rendered characters, Gutman (the My Weird School series) chronicles how Cleopatra’s Needle became a New York City landmark in this delightfully fact-ional blend of history and adventure. In an introduction, the novel’s unnamed contemporary narrator ventures through Central Park with their mother and younger sister. Upon arriving at their destination—the eponymous obelisk—their mother, “who makes her living as a storyteller,” regales her children with the history of the monument. Via varying POVs—including that of an Egyptian boy in 1460 BCE, a female inventor in 1880s N.Y.C., and others—Mom explains how Cleopatra’s Needle was commissioned by Pharaoh Thutmosis III in the granite pits of Aswan, Egypt, which she gleans from the hieroglyphics etched into the structure, and its subsequent removal from the country. Each successive event in the obelisk’s history is rendered with keen attention to sociopolitical details, including housing insecurity and child enslavement. These weighty topics are counterbalanced by the protagonists’ diary-style narrations, which ground this sweeping introduction to the lesser-known history of an iconic monolith. Ages 8–12.
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