Caroline B. Cooney. For All Time. New York: Delacorte Press, 2001. 261 pp. Ages 12 and up. $12.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-385-32773-2.
Reviewed by Alexandra O'Brien (University of Chicago)
Published on H-AfrTeach (April, 2002)
For All Time is the last of the Time Travel Quartet (the previous books being Both Sides of Time, Out of Time, and Prisoner of Time) and those who have read the first three books (which I have not) will not be disappointed with this final episode. This story links three levels of time: present day (1999), 1899, and Old Kingdom Egypt. The main characters running through the quartet, Strat and Annie, meet each other again initially in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both looking at a photograph where Annie hopes to be able to reconnect with her beloved Strat in 1899, where she last left him. The two other main story lines running through this book center on two female characters: Camilla Mateusz, whose father died in a fire at Strat's father's factory, and Renifer, handmaiden to Pharaoh's Daughter. The interlocking tales take Strat from the archaeological expedition for which he is photographer, tumbling back through time, to save Annie and Renifer from death, buried alive in the corpseless tomb of Queen Hetepheres. Meanwhile, Camilla, posing as a private detective--which calls for her to pretend to be a man pretending to be a woman--pursues Strat to Egypt in 1899 as part of her means to both earn money for her widowed mother to raise her smaller siblings, and a means to exact revenge on Hiram Stratton Senior for the death of her father.
Cooney tells a gripping story. I found this book thoroughly engaging and enjoyed reading it immensely. After the story ends on page 259, a page of "Facts" follows, giving the reader some background on the real tomb of Hetepheres, discovered by George Reisner in 1925. In addition to these facts, it should be pointed out that after the Archaic Period (around 2700 BC), where the evidence isn't clear, there is no evidence for human sacrifice of any kind in ancient Egypt.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
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Citation:
Alexandra O'Brien. Review of Cooney, Caroline B., For All Time.
H-AfrTeach, H-Net Reviews.
April, 2002.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=6138
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