The Secret in Central Park, a guest post by Dan Gutman
I’ve ridden my bike around Central Park in New York City hundreds of times. The six-mile loop takes riders past this giant obelisk. It’s seven stories high and weighs 220 tons. It’s the oldest outdoor monument in New York and the oldest man-made object in Central Park. Every day, thousands of people walk, jog, and bike past this thing, but hardly anybody notices or bothers to stop and take a look at it.
So I wondered—why is this obelisk here? How did it get here? And that was the inspiration for my new middle grade novel The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra’s Needle (Holiday House).
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It was the middle of the pandemic, so I had some time on my hands to do some research. It wasn’t easy. There are no children’s books about Cleopatra’s Needle, and only a couple of books for adults.
I found that the obelisk has a fascinating history. It was carved 3,500 years ago in the granite quarries of Aswan, Egypt. In 12 B.C.E., it was moved to Alexandria, Egypt, where it stood for nearly two thousand years. Then, in 1880 it was carefully tilted, lowered, put inside a ship, brought across the Atlantic Ocean, dragged (on cannonballs) across Manhattan, and raised behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art where it stands today. This was all before we had trucks, planes, cranes, or computers, of course.
And it never would have happened if not for the heroic efforts of one man—a U.S. Navy officer named Henry Honeychurch Gorringe. Gorringe had to overcome enormous logistical, diplomatic, weather, and technical challenges to complete his mission. When England brought a similar obelisk to London, six men died. Gorringe didn’t lose one.
The story of Cleopatra’s Needle coming to America was a sensation in 1880, but it seems to have been lost to history. Hardly anybody knows the name Henry Honeychurch Gorringe today. But I became obsessed with this story and decided to tell it–in diary form–by six kids who played a part in making it happen…
An enslaved Egyptian boy who helped carve and pull Cleopatra’s Needle out of the ground in 1461 B.C.E.
An Egyptian boy who did the artwork for the hieroglyphics that were carved into the obelisk.
An Egyptian girl who did everything she could to prevent Cleopatra’s Needle from being taken away from Egypt in 1880.
A British boy who stowed away on the ship that brought the obelisk to New York, and helped prevent that ship from sinking in the middle of the Atlantic.
An American girl who designed a key element to help Henry Gorringe move Cleopatra’s Needle across Manhattan.
And finally, a bored American boy in the present day who gets dragged to Central Park by his mother to see Cleopatra’s Needle.
I figure that School Library Journal readers know the typical way for an author to sell a book idea to an editor is to write a proposal and a sample chapter. I didn’t do that for The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra’s Needle.
Instead, I contacted Elizabeth Law, who edited my first children’s book back in 1993 and also Houdini and Me in 2021. I asked her if she would give me an hour of her time to go on an adventure. She said yes, and I told her to meet me at 5th Avenue and 81st street in Manhattan.
We walked around to the back of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. When we got to Cleopatra’s Needle, I asked her what she knew about it. Elizabeth, who’s lived in Manhattan for over thirty years, didn’t know much. She thought it might be a recent copy of another Egyptian obelisk (also called Cleopatra’s Needle) that is in Paris. We sat on a bench next to the obelisk and I told her the whole story, with the help of a PowerPoint I had made on my laptop.
I told Elizabeth honestly that I didn’t know if kids would have any interest in the story, but she bought the idea on the spot. When I finished the book, I dedicated it to Elizabeth because her editorial suggestions made it so much better than it was when I turned in my first draft.
The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra’s Needle comes out today. And to this day, I still don’t know if kids will have any interest in this book. But whether they’re interested or not, it’s a story that deserves to be told. And I’m glad I told it.
Up until now, I’ve always tried to write stories that might reach a big audience. I wanted to sell lots of books and make lots of money! A few of my stories have been successful and many have totally flopped. This is the first time in my career that I wrote a book with no concern for how it will sell. I wrote it because I was fascinated by the subject. Maybe it will be fascinating to kids too. I hope so.
Meet the author
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Dan Gutman was born in a log cabin in Illinois and used to write by candlelight with a piece of chalk on a shovel. Oh, wait. That was Abraham Lincoln. Actually, Dan has written 185 books for beginning readers (Rappy the Raptor), young readers (My Weird School), and advanced readers (The Genius Files, Houdini and Me). Dan lives in New York City. You can visit his web site (www.dangutman.com) and follow him on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
About The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra’s Needle
From the author of the My Weird School books, an adventure story that spans centuries and continents.
In Central Park, New York, stands Cleopatra’s Needle. But what do you know about? Did you know that thousands of people worked in 1461 BCE to build it? Then hundreds more moved it, and erected it in Alexandria, where it stood for 3,000 years? So how did a monolith weighing over 200 tons get moved all the way to New York City—and in the 19th Century, no less?
In this historical fiction account by bestselling author Dan Gutman, five kids who watched the Needle at each phase of its history recount the daring story of how something that seemed to be impossible –and that nearly ended in disaster—finally succeeded against all odds.
Including photos, diagrams, and illustrations, this book will leave history lovers and fans of problem solving astounded at all that was accomplished. And best of all, it will leave middle grade readers feeling they’ve just watched a really good movie—they’ll hardly even realize they were reading.
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
ISBN-13: 9780823454846
Publisher: Holiday House
Publication date: 06/04/2024
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years
Filed under: Guest Post
About Amanda MacGregor
Amanda MacGregor works in an elementary library, loves dogs, and can be found on Twitter @CiteSomething.
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