Historical novel recommendations for Ancient Civilizations?

[provenance61]

I'm doing a co-op Ancient Civilizations class, and would appreciate recommendations for historical novels which cover the civilizations we're studying.  This would be for an additional reading list, if the parents want to add these in.

Here are the broad topics (course is two semesters, for grades 6-8):

Archaeology/Historiography
Ancient Near East
--Sumerians
--Babylonians
--Assyrians
Israelites
Persian Empire
Egypt
Greece
China and India
Ancient Americas
Greece, transition to Rome
Rome up to the fall of the Roman Empire

 

[Momto6inIN]

Golden Goblet (Egypt)

Bronze Bow (Israelites at the time of Christ)

[Lori D.]

Ancient Near East
  - Gilgamesh the Hero (Maccaughrean) -- retelling of the ancient epic
Egypt
  - Tales of Ancient Egypt (Green)
  - The Golden Goblet (McGraw)
  - Mara Daughter of the Nile (McGraw)
  - Shadow Hawk (Norton)
Israel
  + Egypt = God King (Williamson)
  + Egypt = Tirzah (Lucille)
  + Assyria = Behold Your Queen (Malvern) -- fiction of the Biblical Esther
  + Hitite = Hittite Warrior (Williamson)
  + Rome = The Bronze Bow. (George)
Greece
  - one of the retellings of the Iliad, Odyssey (Children's Homer; ones by Rosemary Sutcliff...)
  - In Search of a Homeland (Lively ) -- retelling of the Aeneid
  - Tanglewood Tales (Hawthorne) -- retelling of Greek myths by Nathaniel Hawthorne
China and India -- most of the works I know of are set in early A.D. through about 1700s, so not "true ancients"
Ancient Americas -- same
Rome up to the fall of the Roman Empire
  - Detectives in Togas (Winterfeld)

Ancient titles that are on many lists that I don't recommend:
- Egypt = Cat of Bubastes (and others by Henry) -- no depth of character; 1800s British imperialistic; not always historically accurate
- Israel = Victory on the Walls (Hyman) -- dull; not very well-written
- Greece = Ides of April, and, Beyond the Desert Gate (Ray) -- well-written, but best for high school ages

Edited September 6, 2019 by Lori D.

[Farrar]

The Ancient Ocean Blues is okay - YA novel about ancient Rome.

There are lots of potential Trojan War inspired YA novels. Troy by Adele Geras is one. Goddess of Yesterday by Caroline Cooney is another.

If you have an advanced reader, there are actually a lot of relatively clean easy reads by adult authors about ancient Rome. All the Colleen McCullough books are super detailed. There are those Steven Saylor mysteries. These are definitely adult books and if you want something totally clean, look elsewhere, but they're not salacious. They're historical sagas and trade paperbacks, not high literature. But they're heavy on the historical detail.

We really loved The Well of Sacrifice about the Mayans.

Most of the historical fiction I know for east Asia is medieval - Single Shard, Crystal Ribbon, I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade...

In general, I think this is a period that is lacking in good historical fiction for YA/MG books. For families who like all their literature to  go with their history, I'd say pick another theme and read some modern or just good novels for the year you do ancients.

 

[Momto6inIN]

On 9/6/2019 at 11:17 AM, Farrar said:

 

In general, I think this is a period that is lacking in good historical fiction for YA/MG books. For families who like all their literature to  go with their history, I'd say pick another theme and read some modern or just good novels for the year you do ancients.

 

We did a lot of folk tales from various parts of the world during our Ancients year in middle school for this reason. Tales from Africa, Jataka Tales, etc in addition to Greek and Roman mythology

[acresoft]

Israelite / Bible Times

Carmi of Judea

Fountain of Life

Time of the Apostles:

Living Tabernacle