Review - A Cry from Egypt

A Cry from Egypt

Author:  Hope Auer

Web Site:  http://www.raisingrealmen.com/ourstore/bookswepublish/

Or Hope’s Web Site:  http://acryfromegypt.com/

Cost:  $12.50

Ages:  Middle School and Up

My youngest is starting world history this year.  A Cry from Egypt by Hope Auer arrived at just the right time to kick off our school year and start with a little historical fiction.  Hope’s book focuses on the time when God sent the plagues on Egypt to get the Israelites released.  My son knows the Biblical story, so having a fictional account to go along with it really brought it to life.

What I love about the opportunity to review this book and have my son read it is that it is written by a young lady who was homeschooled and illustrated by a young man who also was homeschooled.  This shows my boys that you can follow your passions and be successful! 

Hal and Melanie Young run the Raising Real Men web site named after their amazingly successful book by the same title.  They discovered and published Hope and have several other excellent homeschooling resources available.

Hope Auer has really taken off!  She is continuing the series, and, based on her web site, is developing a study guide for the text.  Additionally, she posts on her site lessons that students can follow to work towards developing their own Biblical historical fiction.

I asked my son to write a review of the book, here’s what he has to say:

“Well, for starters, I don’t like biblical stories.  But, A Cry from Egypt was fantastic. The story takes place with a large Hebrew family who live in the times of ancient Egypt where Pharaoh opposes God (Yahweh)’s command to let the Hebrews leave to the Promised Land.  God retaliates, and, just like in the Bible, sends wave after wave after WAVE of locusts, frogs, flies, darkness, and more. The family sees God’s wonders, and the mother slowly converts from Egyptian Gods to Christianity.

The family itself consists of a lot of people; however, the recurring ones are Eitan, who wants to marry Ada, the queens advisor, but can’t; Shanya, the rather bossy older sister; Mother, the angry mom; Father, the patriotically Christian father; and Jarah, who is kind of a setback. Jarah is the main character, which is fine, but she seemed a bit too fragile.  Sure, it makes sense to cry whenever you fall inside the crocodile infested Nile river as it turns to blood, but she also cried just as hard if she so much as fell down and scraped her knee. I think they needed a bit stronger character.

All in all, the book was great. I loved the characters and kept on wanting to read. It was a combination of funny, tragic, romantic, and…happy. Great work, Hope.”

We have a winner!  My son is a reader, but he likes what he likes.  He clearly enjoyed Hope’s book.  In fact, he would read ahead.  At one point, he was sad when several characters died as God killed the first born Egyptians.  The mark of a good story is invoking emotion.  He said the ending is happy, and he really enjoyed it.  I’m going to make sure to keep buying the series as it comes out!

To learn more about Hope, and A Cry from Egypt, you can go to the following sites:

Hope’s Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/hopeauerbooks

Hope’s Blog - http://acryfromegypt.com/

If you would like to see what other Schoolhouse Review Crew members thought – click here.

*** Disclaimer – I received this book free as a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review.