Historical Fiction Set in Ancient Sumer: The Scribe’s Secret by Jennifer Johnson Garrity

I have always liked to supplement history studies with historical fiction. I found picture books and novels in abundance while studying Greece and Rome, the Renaissance and the Reformation, or the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Objective of the ancient Sumerian? The closest I could get was the story of Gilgamesh, but it’s an epic, not a novel, and it’s not that appealing to eight to twelve year old girls!

Actually, both girls and boys will delight in Scribe’s secret, the first historical novel about ancient Sumeria that I have ever seen. Author Jennifer Johnson Garrity transports the reader 5000 years back to the time of Abraham and the bustling city of Ur. Told in the first person, it is the story of a young woman, Tabni, who grows up comfortably as a slave to a Sumerian queen. until a great calamity forces her to flee the palace at night and enter the world alone.

We don’t love The children of the wagon Y My side of the mountain, where the brave protagonists must live cleverly on their own? This theme of universal appeal appears on Scribe’s secret too. As the young scribe Tabni weaves her narrative, the reader travels with her by boat along the wide Euphrates River to the Sumerian commercial center of Ur, where we experience both the grandeur of the gleaming ziggurat and the stench of the narrow alleys.

The history of Tabni attracts us. We feel your pain and hunger when you find yourself homeless in a new world. We discover her courage and bravery as she forms a daring plan while secretly living alone. And we savor Tabni’s fear of vengeance from the many gods he desperately tries to appease.

In the style of a true “historical novel”, The Scribe’s Secret teaches the reader about life and customs in Ur, how the people of this ancient civilization lived, ate, dressed, worked and worshiped. Words in italics scattered throughout the book point to a glossary of unfamiliar terms, making it easy for the teacher or homeschooling parent to incorporate vocabulary into their Sumerian studies.

Scribe’s secret It would also be a great springboard into arts and crafts. The book introduces students to Sumerian crafts such as weaving, metallurgy, jewelry making, and ceramics, opening up all kinds of possibilities for complementary projects. Trained as a scribe, Tabni writes on clay tablets, suggesting a project that combines art with learning Sumerian cuneiform writing.

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