THE (MOSTLY) TRUE STORY OF CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE

An unnamed boy could be watching the ball game but instead must sit in Central Park, listening to his professional storyteller mom spout facts about Cleopatra’s Needle.

To pique his curiosity, Mom invents diary excerpts from five fictitious children whose lives intersected with the obelisk’s creation and journey. First, Zosar Zuberi, an enslaved Syrian boy in Aswan, Egypt, in 1461-1460 BCE, writes about the grueling labor required to cut the obelisk from a piece of granite. In Heliopolis in 1459 BCE, Lateef Jabari’s artistic dreams are realized when the pharaoh praises his drawings of the hieroglyphs for the obelisk. Fast-forward to 1879-1880: The obelisk has moved to Alexandria, and Panya Hassan, a 14-year-old girl, details the controversy and logistics of its transfer to America: “If foreigners want treasures so badly, they should create their own.” Thomas Brighton is an English boy who ran away from a troubled home; he stows away on the ship transporting the obelisk to New York. Finally, young inventor Rebecca Watson conveys the excitement and challenges of its installation in Central Park. Between the diary segments, the contemporary boy’s first-person narration resumes, successfully smoothing the transitions. Readers will be drawn into the mystery of why and how an ancient Egyptian artifact stands in Central Park; they’ll marvel at the feats of engineering and learn tidbits of history through the clear, detailed text and plentiful photos and illustrations.

Vividly and accessibly resuscitates an ancient monument’s forgotten history.