Gilgamesh the Hero

by Geraldine McCaughrean, David Parkins (Illustrator)

Overview

“Robust, exciting…The most riveting retelling yet of this ancient, ageless tale.” 
— Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)

Carnegie Medal-winning children’s author Geraldine McCaughrean offers a heroic retelling of the world’s oldest written epic

Gilgamesh and Enkidu are friends — best friends. Together they can work wonders, fight monsters, brave earthquakes, travel the world! But waiting in the dark is the one enemy they can never overcome.

The tale of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest stories in the world, ripe with themes that are as current today as they were during the story’s inception around 2000 BC.: friendship, fame, courage, happiness.Retold by award-winning author Geraldine McCaughrean, and illustrated with great power by David Parkins, Gilgamesh the Hero is a story that will linger in the imagination long after the book has been put down.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802852625
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	06/20/2003
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.43(d)
Lexile:	780L (what's this?)
Age Range:	11 - 15 Years

About the Author

Geraldine McCaughrean has written more than a hundred books for children, including the award-winning Gilgamesh the Hero (Eerdmans). In addition, she has won every major prize for children's literature in England, including the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Award, and the Guardian Children's Fiction Award. Geraldine lives in England.

Table of Contents

1	Heaven Sent	4
2	Tamed by a Kiss	12
3	Do or Die	20
4	Marry Me	31
5	Death	42
6	Afraid of Nothing	48
7	Give Up	57
8	Faraway	67
9	The Bread of Sorrow	77
10	The Plant of Life	83
11	Home	88
12	The Twelfth Tablet	92

Editorial Reviews

Robust, exciting…The most riveting retelling yet of this ancient, ageless tale.” 
— Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)

"Clearly a telling for our time, but one that honors its source. Parkins captures the epic's primitive power and universal emotions in rough, broadly rendered portraits."
— Horn Book

“Rendered with simplicity and power…begs to be read aloud.” 
— Booklist 

"This allegory is skillfully, beautifully retold by the incomparable Ms. McCaughrean, who has won every major prize for children's literature in Great Britain."
— Children's Literature

"The power [McCaughrean] generates here is striking, taking its source in the complexity of character she gives to ancient King Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu. . . [Gilgamesh's] quest for the 'secret of immortality' becomes a believable journey through grief, and McCaughrean makes us weep and cry with Gilgamesh, with life."
— Chicago Tribune

"This has the vivid language and dialogue of an effective chapter-by-chapter readaloud. The retelling downplays the overt sexuality and bloody extremes of various translations but maintains the powerful sweep of traditional epic literature in a cohesive narrative with strong chronological momentum that drives the hero through his own story."
— Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"The world's oldest recorded story . . . is here beautifully, if very freely, retold by a distinguished British children's author. . . .David Parkins's muscular woodcuts help breathe life into the tale of the passionate god-king who went in search of immortality."
— Washington Post Book World

“Dramatic.”
— Publishers Weekly

“McCaughrean's retelling is superb…this fabulous introduction to the epic tradition deserves a wide readership.”
— School Library Journal 

The world's oldest recorded story, originally carved onto clay tablets in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) some 3,000 years before Christ, is here beautifully, if very freely, retold by a distinguished British children's author. — Elizabeth Ward

The Washington Post

McCaughrean turns in a robust, exciting rendition of the world's oldest written epic. After many astounding feats, proud, powerful king Gilgamesh sees his beloved sidekick Enkidu die, and becomes terrified of doing the same. Abandoning self-respect, he searches the world for the secret of immortality, crosses the Waters of Death to hear the tale of undying Utnapisthim (better knows as Noah), and at last returns home, to make wiser bids for immortality by telling his tale, and raising children. Thanks to the former, as McCaughrean points out, he's better known today than Ishtar, Enlil, or any of the other "immortal" gods he fought and worshiped. Enhanced by Parkins's expressionistic tableaus of gnarled, dramatically posed figures, she relates his adventures with gusto-"Gilgamesh calmly strung his bow. 'Don't launch the funeral barge yet. What can go wrong with the two of us side by side?' 'Do you really want me to tell you?' said Enkidu"-while vividly capturing his pride, soul-deep anguish, and the personal cost of his hard-won wisdom. The most riveting retelling yet of this ancient, ageless tale. (introductory note) (Folktale. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews