Slave Girl (Alexa Moses, HarperCollins)

Fashion-obsessed Jenna Bookallil-Brown thought a two-month exchange trip to New York would be the perfect adventure, but one museum trip too many has left her with cultural overload. Hoping to sneak off to the salon during a visit to the Met, she hides out in the Egyptian wing—and inadvertently stumbles 3,500 years back in time. With her strange accent and outfit, the bewildered 13-year-old is captured and put to work as a slave. And with no-one to save her, Jenna has to find her own way out of antiquity, before it’s too late. Time travel and exotic ancient lands are a winning combination for junior fiction, and the first title in Alexa Moses’ fun new adventure series aims to make history accessible for girls—particularly reluctant readers—by showing that it’s more than just broken pottery and boring old dead things. Centred around Jenna, an unlikely heroine who is more interested in designer gladiator sandals than the real thing, this snappy fish-out-of-water tale is a history lesson in disguise. It cleverly combines the colourful workings of ancient Egyptian life with everyday issues of friendship and bullying, and is sure to leave readers eagerly awaiting Jenna’s next exciting adventure in the ancient realm.

Meredith Lewin is a freelance proofreader and book reviewer who has worked for a children’s publisher

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews