#26- Pharaoh's Boat

Pharaoh's Boat

Written and Illustrated by David Witzman

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2009

38 Pages

Non-Fiction

     This is the story of how the Pharaoh, Cheops, was once a great ruler over Egypt. After his death, his son, Djedfre, was in charge of making sure that a boat was built for his father. The ancient Egyptians believed that in order to reach the eternal life, the deceased needed a boat to cross a river that led to the afterlife. Djedfre had workers create a grand boat for his father. This boat was then taken apart and the pieces were carefully piled up next to the base of Cheops pyramid. Centuries later in 1954, archaeologists discovered the boat and Ahmed Youssef Moustafa began the difficult job of restoring the boat. This books explains both the process that the ancient Egyptians workers did to make the boat and the process that Ahmed took to reconstruct the boat.

     Witzman used colored pencil, pen and ink to create the illustrations for this book. All the illustrations are very detailed. Witzman includes lots of hieroglyphics throughout the book. He has pictures that would most likely be seen on pyramid walls. Most of the illustrations show the workers creating the boat and most of the illustrations include notes about the building and the tools that the workers used. Also several of the diagrams include labels for what the different parts of the boat are in each stage of construction.

     This would be a great book to help students understand more about Ancient Egypt. It would be a great book to have available for students to look at while doing a unit on Ancient Egypt. It is also a good book to use to talk about archaeologists. This book would be great to help students understand just how much work goes into restoring what archaeologists find. Also this book gives great insight into what the culture of the Ancient Egyptians was and what they believed. There are several different things this book could be used for while teaching Ancient Egyptian lessons.