This fun and informative picture book written on a 4th grade 8th month AR level retells a historical event through a fictionalized narrator. A great retelling of a West meets East event with an albino elephant thrown in, makes for a story that is hard to believe is true.
Charlemagne, the medieval ruler of most of Europe, sent ambassadors to meet the Caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid. Charlemagne was curious to learn more about the amazing ruler he had heard so much about. When the Europeans arrived they were astounded at the buildings, libraries, organization and cleanliness of the city. For months, Harun “introduced the men to artists, musicians, scholars, mathematicians, architects and poets” and taught them about “science, medicine, engineering, and art.” Harun al-Rashid’s generosity however did not stop there. “He loaded a caravan with presents fit for a fellow emperor.” He sent a saber and scabbard, a precious water jug, and a magnificent clock that he had commissioned his artisans to create. A mechanical water clock, that unfortunately, has been lost in history, but was detailed in the 807 CE Annles regain Francium, a journal that chronicled the daily life in Charlemagne’s court as well as in a book written 400 years after Harun by Al-Jazazi in Istanbul, Turkey. Even this, however, was not enough for the great emperor of the West, and Harun gave Charlemagne the rarest treasure of his court, an albino Elephant named Abu.
Abu even had his own keeper, a Jewish man named Isaac, and when they returned back to Europe both were invited to live in the palace. “Once or twice a day Charlemagne would visit his immense guest.” Abu’s image was preserved in portraits and began to appear on coins and tapestries in the empire. Even in Charlemagne’s tomb is a silk cloth woven with elephants. Abu was taken into battle against the Danes and when he got old, Charlemagne had a house built for him and Isaac near a river. In 810 Abu died and when Charlemagne learned of his death, “he wept.”
The story shows the amazing respect the two leaders had for one another, for animals, and the tolerance of people of different faiths. At 40 pages it works for story time and for older students learning about the Middle Ages. Obviously they would take away drastically different points from the story, but both groups would enjoy it. I learned a lot, so I recommend it to adults as well. The pictures are beautiful water colors and pencil, supplemented with actual photos of artifacts, that all combine to make the story and book a wonderful addition to your library to be read and enjoyed again and again. 
I was intrigued to see this book offered by Scholastic in the teen Reading Club Catalog as it sounded both action packed and cultural. The jacket cover summary was vague in describing the characters as being from an “unnamed Middle Eastern country,” but with the slightly veiled girl on front, I figured they probably are Muslim, and I should at the very least how they/we are being portrayed. The book is 295 pages long and that includes the story, the Author’s Note, and a Truth in Fiction section. The author is a former undercover CIA officer and the intense action, intertwined with cultural understandings, leave the reader second guessing and on the edge until the end. The AR level is 5.1, but with the profanity, sexual situations, and violence I would recommend the book to those in high school and up (15+).
This beautiful, beautiful book tells of a little and sparsely known event in history. During the holocaust The Grand Mosque of Paris served as a place of refuge for many North African Jews. Many who passed through the vast gardens and beautiful Mosque were given fake documents of conversion, tombstones with their family names inscribed, and access to truly underground passageways (subterranean mazes), as the Muslims of Paris offered assistance to keep their Jewish brother’s and sister’s safe from the Nazi regime. Many of the stories were recently uncovered and with the passage of time, so much of the information has been lost. As a result the book is a bit choppy, each page tells what is known about the Muslims’ assistance in some capacity, but does not flow to the next page. So there are generalized recountings of children being hidden with other families, the efforts of the Kabyle Ressistance (Berbers from Algeria) to smuggle Jews to safety, etc.. There are also a few specific examples of Salim Halali, a young Berber Jew from Algeria, two friends one a Muslim the other a Jew seeking shelter, a Tunisian Jew who stayed at the Mosque for over two years,and a few others, but with the exception of the use of the Grand Mosque and a Doctor Ahmed Somia very little flows throughout the book. Thus making it more of a historical account than a story.
Islamic School Librarian 