A beautifully illustrated biography of Hatshepsut, aimed for upper elementary students. The content is interesting and the writing style is okay, however the book's potential for this age group is somewhat dimmed by its storyboarding. It reads more like a collection of vignettes than a cohesive narrative, and has some design elements that might be problematic.

The book starts out with a potentially confusing vertical timeline oriented with 1000 BC at the top and 3100 BC at the bottom, which reads "backwards" at first glace, and has no note to clarify that the more recent events are listed first. The next spread uses Hatshepsut's mortuary temple to introduce the reader to her, mentions some brief highlights of her life, and notes that the temple has since been defaced by vandals. The following pages go on to describe her childhood and the fact that she was being prepared for life as a queen. The spread afterwards includes a description of her ancestral dynasty with several names and places listed, but is several pages away from the timeline and map before the introduction. Then the narrative jumps back to her childhood and goes more or less chronologically from there. Each 2-page spread is headed with a related, but unidentified, quote, sometimes directly from Hatshepsut, sometimes about her, and one by Senenmut referring to himself.

Overall, this a good book on an interesting topic, written fairly well. With some slight adjustments, it would be even better. As it is, the book has a nice clean layout and great illustrations, which makes it quite appealing to browse through. ( )

This book explained before and after the reign of Hatshepsut. At the start of the book, it explains the numerous spellings of Hatshepsut. It can be spelled "Hatchepsut" or "Hatshepsuit" but the author decided on "Hatshepsut". Soon the book tells of how Hatshepsut had a father who was currently the pharaoh of Egypt, Tuthmosis (tooth-MOE-sis). It explained her early and pampered life. In the middle it explains the death of her father and the slow rise of her power to Egypt. She was crowned pharaoh at the age of fifteen. Hatshepsut acted as a male and female, wearing wake beards and wearing mens short kilts. Slowly it explains the great leader Hatshepsut became, leading the creations of many buildings beyond Egypt's time, like the Djeser-Djeseru (JEH-sir jeh-SEH-roo) and a monument for her dead father. Hatshepsut was buried with her father. Tuthmosis the third was crowned pharaoh and tried to erase Hatshepsut's memory from all of Egypt. Fortunately, he failed.

I rated this book three stars. It was a decent biography about Hatshepsut. I think the main ideas where interesting but it didn't grab my attention the way I wanted it to. The facts were astonishing, both before and after her death, but I would have liked to hear more about related facts. It was basically your typical nonfiction book and it needed a little more excitement or energy to really get readers interested. I was certainly interested in the topic but the details were a little bit boring. Although, the book actually gave you a lot of information that helped the reader understand her memorable reign. Overall, the book was certainly decent. ( )

Hatshepsut is a book about the reign for Hatshepsut as pharaoh. I had no idea there was a woman who named herself pharaoh. I appreciated the pronunciations of Egyptian names and places, but there were several words that were not given pronunciations that were hard to pronounce. Some words were also not defined in the text, while others were. This book could be used as an example of a powerful woman when women were not allowed or expected to have such roles. Students could then research other powerful women before their time. Students could also research more Egyptian life like burials, gods, and monuments. This could also be used as an interesting introduction to feminism. I think this book could be used to start a conversation about the rights of women during that time. Some of the information is contradictory, which is to be expected since not much is known. I think the theme of this book is that it does not matter if you are a woman or a man. You can still be whatever you want to be. ( )

This book purports to be a biography of Hatshepsut, the only female pharaoh of ancient Egypt. I found that it was a little disjointed, with random bits of information about life and customs in ancient Egypt sprinkled throughout the book in a somewhat nonsensical fashion. Despite that, I think it would be a good way to introduce ancient Egypt to younger children, but I would use other books as well, as the topic is much too broad and fascinating to be taught with just the one book. ( )

A book about what scientists believe about the life of the first woman pharaoh in Ancient Egypt. This is a great book about the Egyptians and their culture but wouldn't recommend it for younger students because of all the Egyptian words and phrases. I would love to use it in a unit about ancient civilizations. ( )