Barbie: The Pyramid Adventure

Cover

Title Barbie: The Pyramid Adventure

Author Rita Balducci

ISBN 0-7172-8797-1

Publisher Grolier Books

Category Children's Books

Shira's Rating (on a scale of 0 to 5)

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What It's About

This book is designed for girls approximately ages 5 to 8. In it, Barbie goes to Egypt to visit her friend Christie who is an archeology student working at a dig. Christie takes her to visit some of Egypt's popular tourist attractions such as a felucca ride, the pyramids, the Sphinx, and Valley of the Kings. The visit culminates with a trip to the tomb Christie has been helping excavate. In it, Barbie gets separated from the others, falls asleep, and dreams of being a princess in Pharaonic times, along with her friend Christie. Princesses Barbie and Christie sneak away from the palace and visit the construction site of the Sphinx, then return to the palace. At this point, modern-day Barbie wakes from her dream, and to everyone's delight manages to help the archeological team find the hidden room they had been searching for in the tomb complex.

So far as plots go, it's not high literature, but it's on a par with other books for this age group.

The story is illustrated with photographs of Barbie and Christie dolls clad in attire that matches various points in the story line. For example, when Barbie arrives she's wearing tourist garb, and later during the dream the photo shows her and Christie in princessly dresses similar to those depicted in ancient Egyptian artwork.

Its Good Points

The book does a pleasant job of introducing vocabulary. It opens with a pronunciation guide for words that a child in the target age group wouldn't be likely to know, such as Egypt, archeology, ancient, etc. As these words are introduced in the story, they appear in bold letters, which can be used as a signal to refer back to the pronunciation guide. They are also defined when introduced.

The story is full of elements a little girl would enjoy - bonding with a friend, meeting a cute kitty cat, being a princess, being the one who found something everyone else was looking for.

The story makes both modern-day Egypt and ancient Egypt sound interesting. For modern-day Egypt, it refers to the fun shopping, the interest of seeing animals and cars side-by-side in traffic, and interesting tourist sites to visit. For ancient Egypt, it speaks of pyramids, tombs, and royalty.

On The Negative Side....

I'm annoyed at how this book plays fast and loose with the facts. It suggests that the Valley of the Kings is a short camel ride from the pyramids and Sphinx, when in fact it's about 200 miles as the ibis flies, probably longer on camel back if you follow the twists and turns of the Nile to stay close to drinking water. It claims that hieroglyphs identify who was buried inside the three great pyramids of Giza, even though there has never been any evidence of anyone being buried there and these pyramids do not contain any such hieroglyphics. I realize it's fiction, but when fiction is set in real-life places it should still try to paint an accurate picture of those places. Suppose the adult reading the book to the child decides to plan a trip to Egypt and expects to see the modern-day sites that are described in the book - shouldn't the book avoid creating misconceptions?

After seeing the photos of Barbie clad in ancient Egyptian attire, I naturally wanted one of those outfits for my Barbie doll! Alas, I was unable to find anything of the sort in my online shopping attempts. How dare they show photos of such Barbie clothes if they don't sell them? Harumph.

In Conclusion

The marketing propaganda for this book sets it up for failure. I've seen ads for it claiming it's a "mystery" story or a "time travel" tale. Both claims are rather exaggerated, to say the least.

It's not bad for what it is - a travelogue about a tourist visiting an exotic place that has a strong historic allure. The dream about being a princess enhances the appeal for the target audience. This book isn't a bad one for a little girl, especially one who likes Barbie dolls, but it probably wouldn't be my first choice.

Where To Get It

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