Last spring we took our first family vacation out of the country. This was partly inspired by my daughter who complained that she thought her view of the world was "egocentric" because all she knew was American customs. Travel is something most parents want for their children. But sometimes economics and scheduling make that impossible. There's always armchair travel; curling up with a book has neither time, geographic, nor economic limitations. Several amazing new young adult books transport readers of all ages to other times and places.
Julius Lester takes us back to ancient times as he retells the Biblical tale of Moses with a new perspective in Pharoh's Daughter: A Novel of Ancient Egypt (Harcourt, $17.00; ages 12 and up) Lester, a black man and son of a Methodist minister, is now a practicing Jew, and teaches Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is a man who questions and every one of his books invites readers to look deeper.
In Pharoh's Daughter, he introduces Almah, a twelve year old Haibru (Jew) who is at odds with her world. Her father works on the pharaoh's temple and has taught his daughter the Khemetian (Egyptian) language. Almah has learned easily and this puts her in an odd position. While her knowledge is useful to those around her, they distrust her as there are rumors that the Khemetians plan to kill Haibru baby boys. Almah must keep her baby brother hidden, but this is a small secret compared to the one she carries deep inside; she feels a foreigner inside her own skin, for she would rather worship the natural world than the Jewish god, Ya. When Almah saves Princess Meryetamun, the pharaoh's daughter, her life is changed forever.
Meryetamun takes Almah, her baby brother and her mother, Ima, to the Women's Palace. Almah, enchanted with the life of beauty and ease, has finally found a world that makes sense to her. As time passes, Almah becomes a Khemetian priestess and Meryetmun begins to believe in Ya. As the two important women in Moses' life reject their original belief systems, Moses straddles the two cultures with great confusion about the conflicting ideologies of the two women he loves most .
Lester has gotten inside these characters, and through story has looked at their psychological and spiritual selves. Lester offers readers a chance to enter the Ancient Egyptian world, view the complexities that history skims over, and wonder about our own beliefs. Lester's similes are songs, his flawless research and strong emotions are wrapped in a rich sensory feast that is a perfect representation of the world he is depicting . With all this, how can readers not feel as if they have traveled into the heart of Ancient Egypt.
Travel is learning and there's much to learn from Ellen Levine's Darkness Over Denmark: The Danish Resistance and the Rescue of the Jews (Holiday House, $18.95; ages 10 - adult).. The author does a superb job of dispelling myths, capturing individual viewpoints, and establishing historical context in which to explain this famous resistance movement. The large-print text is relieved frequently with black and white illustrations that further illuminate the period. Sadly, readers will learn that the story about King Christian being the first to wear a yellow star and the whole population of Denmark doing the same are myths. However, these fallacies do represent the mood of the people and the times as Levine's specific stories demonstrate. She writes of people fighting in powerful ways, like the formation of Denmark's Freedom Council by leaders of seven different resistance groups and the way the government tried to warn people of Nazi's roundup. There are the sabotages, the night 1,400 Jews were rescued, many saved by doctors who disguised Jews as patients. There are the failures and we learn of their displacement to concentration camps. Levine interviews numbers of people and she personalizes the book with the stories of twenty individuals who made a difference.
Not all journeys are comfortable. Laura William's The Executioner's Daughter (Holt, $15.95; ages 10 and up) was inspired by the author interest in "the darker side of the Middle Ages." Lily, the book's heroine, is the executioner's daughter. Publicly spit on by townsfolk and taunted by peers, her home life is different. Her gentle mother and alcoholic father selflessly serve the community's medicinal needs, she cares for wounded animals and basks in her mother's love. She's confused by periodic changes in her home. A melancholy falls on her family when her father whets his axe, leaves, and returns later to peel off his black gloves and sit down for a night of drinking. Her mother, who acts as his assistant on these occasions, is quiet and scrubs herself until her skin is red as blood. Lily watches and tries to make sense of the two sides of her life. Her mother's death brings every thing into focus for Lily must now assist as executioner and reconcile her conflicting images. The story stays in Lily's point of view and knowing readers will anticipate her sorrows, feel the tension, and wonder about a resolution. This is a short book and though most questions are answered, it will leave readers longing for a sequel. I question also the book's historic accuracy, for I doubt the possibility of a female execution. Still this book gives a remarkable sense of life and prejudice in the Middle Ages.