num_pages: 80
description: Found in Iraq and older than the Bible the Koran or the Torah this stirring epic - the world's oldest written story - now becomes available to a general readership for the very first time.Lugalbanda woke with a jolt. He opened his eyes and what did he see but the terrible Anzu bird beating its wings in its nest high above. . . . Did he quake? Did he quail? No. Lugalbanda the Brave sat and stared and into his head came a brilliant idea.Before the Bible and the Koran before even the Greek and Roman myths there came a story from the land we now call Iraq. Speaking across five thousand years in a voice so fresh and timeless it could have been written yesterday this tale tells of an extraordinary journey of a magical bird of a battle that wouldn't end and of wisdom gained. It is the story of Lugalbanda a boy in a time of war.Etched on clay tablets in cuneiform lost underground for thousands of years and rediscovered just 150 years ago this account of the epic adventures of a loyal resourceful boy is renarrated in lyrical prose by Kathy Henderson and set against Jane Ray's glorious images glinting with gold.
language: English
title: Lugalbanda: The Boy Who Got Caught Up in a War: An Epic Tale From Ancient Iraq (Aesop Prize
publisher: Candlewick Press