Be a Scribe! by Michael Hoffen, Dr. Christian Casey and Dr. Jen Thum
What's It About?
This extraordinary ancient Egyptian translation from almost 4,000 years ago tells the story of a teenage boy as he wonders what career path he should choose.Let’s be clear from the outset: Be a Scribe! by young 16-year-old Michael Hoffen and co-authors, is not a thriller. It’s not contemporary fiction, or a romance, biography, sci-fi, action-adventure, fantasy, horror, or anything motivational.
No, it likely won’t be your book club’s next read. Yet it might be the most unique, fascinating, entertaining, informative and educative book you’ll read this year.
While it’s best suited for all students, I, a full-fledged adult who hasn’t thought about ancient Egypt since Mrs. Spiegleman’s engaging exercises in sixth grade, highly recommend it to grownups as well. But back to students — teachers should scrap their current lesson plans and make this book part of every ancient history curriculum in every elementary school around the country.
An Ancient Story Come to Life
Young Hoffen, while in middle school, was introduced to the joys of translating ancient texts and never looked back. During the pandemic, he embarked on this ambitious project to bring ancient Egypt back to life.
The book represents an extraordinary translation of a papyrus dating from ancient Egypt’s Middle Kingdom era by Hoffen, with the help of co-authors Dr. Christian Casey and Dr. Jen Thum. Known as The Instruction of Khety, it tells the tale of a teenage boy, Pepi, living almost 4,000 years ago, and how his father, Khety, who works in the mines, wants a better life for his son and takes him on a journey upriver to a school that will train him to be a scribe, a much more prestigious vocation than the 18 other jobs that Khety describes to his son.
In fact, Khety is pretty blunt in describing the hardships of many of the other jobs: the smith or sculptor with “fingers like crocodiles;” jewelers and carpenters with arms ruined; the barber exhausted “in order to fill his stomach, like a bee working to eat;” the trader, who is bitten by fleas and mosquitoes; the sandal maker, who has the taste of leather in his mouth all day; the gardener, who only rests when he dies; and the weaver, who gives bread to the doorkeeper “just to let him see daylight.”
Timeless Coming-of-Age Tale
The main storyline — a boy contemplating his career path and a parent, for better or worse, taking charge and heading his son in a certain direction — is not unlike a major theme in our society that we contemplate every day. Khety takes Pepi on a long journey up the Nile to enroll him in a school far away from home, where Pepi will learn to read and write.
Says Khety to his son, “I’ve never seen a job like being a scribe! By telling you about it, I’ll make you love writing more than your mother. I’ll show you what a good salary is like. Being a scribe is like nothing on earth. Fortune starts for him when he is only a child, people already seek advice from him.”
Besides convincing Pepi to stay away from certain jobs, Khety offers his son many words of wisdom that will sound familiar to today’s youth: stay out of trouble, mind your manners, don’t blab, don’t play hooky, and follow orders.
Through the journey upstream (did you know that the Nile River flows from south to north, so “upstream” means you’re going south), the ancient Egyptian father and son discover what daily life was like along the way, with Hoffen’s translation adding color, language quirks, humor and fun facts.
A Reading Experience Unlike Any Other
The beautifully presented, oversized hardcover book is supplemented with images of countless artifacts and paintings.
The young author points out an inaccuracy in that most people believe hieroglyphs are only the drawings that have been discovered from thousands of years ago. But actually they are the sounds of the ancient Egyptian language — without, incidentally, any vowels.
In Be a Scribe!, Michael Hoffen, with the able contributions of Dr. Casey and Dr. Thum, has pieced together an unforgettable story from thousands of years ago that, in many ways, mirrors some of the same dynamics we face today. It is a reading experience unlike any other that you likely will come across this year, for the sheer magnitude of the research and how it came about.
Prepare yourselves to go “on a journey through the hopes, fears, struggles and skills of the ancient people who lived in the shadows of the pyramids.”
AUTHORS
Michael Hoffen is the youngest-ever recipient of the annual Emerson Prize, awarded by the Concord Review for outstanding promise in history. While still in middle school, he was introduced to the joys of translating ancient texts and never looked back. During the pandemic, Michael decided to embark on an ambitious project to bring ancient Egyptian literature to life outside the classroom. Be A Scribe! is Michael’s first book in a series intended for young readers. When not chasing down new stories to translate or write, Michael enjoys biking, swimming, and rock climbing. He lives with his family in New York. Visit www.beascribe.com.
Dr. Christian Casey is an Egyptologist who specializes in the study of ancient Egyptian languages. He obtained his PhD in Egyptology from Brown University in 2020 and now works as a researcher at Freie Universität Berlin. He is especially interested in sharing the exciting world of ancient Egypt with young people and other interested members of the public.
Dr. Jen Thum is an Egyptologist, educator, and curator at the Harvard Art Museums. She received her degrees in Egyptology and Archaeology from the University of Oxford and Brown University. Jen’s work and research center on how people learn from art and artifacts. She teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, publishes widely about learning with ancient objects, and is the lead editor of Teaching Ancient Egypt in Museums: Pedagogies in Practice. Jen conceived of Be a Scribe! after recognizing the need for accessible ancient Egyptian primary sources for young learners.
