I know people don’t come here for the book reviews, but IF you are interested in awesome children’s books like me, you should go get Lugalbanda: The Boy Who Got Caught Up in a War: An Epic Tale From Ancient Iraq. Although this is certainly something you could (slowly) read to your child, don’t be deceived, this is a serious retelling. It’s long. And just because the illustrations are outstanding, don’t think that this isn’t a book that any grown-up interested in mythology (particularly Greek, Babylonian, Sumerian, etc) should read. You should.
The description of the book is, “older than the Bible, the Koran, or the Torah, this stirring epic [is] the world’s oldest written story.” I can’t speak to that myself, not having looked farther than this book, but it is easy to believe. Apparently, it was written in cuneiform and wasn’t translated until the 1970’s!
And, even though this story is about a boy, it is also about Inana, the most important Goddess in the Sumerian pantheon and the Goddess of Love and War. (See, I’m making the ancient goddess connections!)
Highly recommend!
(As always, feel free to join me on Goodreads.com!)
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