Dateline: Troy [Hardcover]

Paul Fleischman (Author), Glenn Morrow (Illustrator), Gwen Frankfeldt (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 7, 1996

An instant classic for schools and libraries!

"The Trojan War is ancient history. Yet, as Newbery Medalist Paul Fleischman reveals, the story of the ILIAD is as current as this morning's newspaper."

The legend of the Trojan War, with its twists of tragedy and powerful portraits of human nature, has transfixed listeners and readers for thousands of years. Now Paul Fleischman retells Homer's epic poem the ILIAD—ingeniously juxtaposing each episode with newspaper clippings of modern events from the First World War through to the Gulf War—to reveal astonishing parallels between the ancient world and our own. In proud Achilles, crafty Odysseus, and lovestruck Paris, we recognize our own leaders, enemies, and next-door neighbors. In their misbegotten battles we perceive the waste of modern warfare. Enthralling storytelling as well as a penetrating look at the unending nature of war, DATELINE: TROY will leave readers with the enduring sense that history is now.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Paul Fleischman offers a glimpse at the Trojan War through modern day newspaper headlines. By equating such events as Agamemnon offering sacrifice to the Greeks before sailing to Troy with George Bush's declaration of a national day of prayer after sending troops to the Persian Gulf, or the massacre of the Trojans by the Greeks to the My Lai incident in Vietnam, Fleischman helps young scholars understand the myth through present-day events and attitudes. Each page of text is enhanced by a collage of newspaper clippings relating to a particular piece of the myth.

From Publishers Weekly

Newbery Medalist Fleischman (Bull Run; Joyful Noise!) turns the Trojan War into an occasion for social studies, with the result that his audience may have to sacrifice some of the pleasures of reading in exchange for a fresh approach to history or current events. In this beautifully designed book, the author juxtaposes an unusually elegant redaction of the legendary conflagration at Troy with newspaper clippings that report events ranging from World War I to sociological experiments on babies' reactions to unattractive women. Each page of text faces such clippings, selected to highlight relevant themes. For example, the passage about the reunion of Paris, abandoned at birth, with his father, King Priam, appears opposite the beginning of a 1988 article from the Washington Post about a woman's search for the son she gave up for adoption in 1967. Other spreads refer to 20th-century wars (the two world wars, Vietnam, the Falklands, Korea, Cyprus, the Middle East) in support of Fleisch- man's thesis that war is futile: he concludes his abridged epic with the question "Who could tell the victor from the vanquished?" Laid against sophisticated graphic backgrounds, the clippings become handsome collages. Even so, the combination of elements remains inharmonious?the collages invite readers to digress from the story rather than determine its meanings for themselves. Instead of offering individual readers an unsupervised literary experience, this experiment succeeds chiefly as a catalyst for class discussion. Ages 12-15.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 80 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick; 1st edition (March 7, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564024695
• ISBN-13: 978-1564024695
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #497,909 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Fleischman grew up in Santa Monica, California, the son of children's book author Sid Fleischman. Drawing on history, music, art, and theater, his books have often experimented with multiple viewpoints and performance. He received the Newbery Medal in 1989 for JOYFUL NOISE: POEMS FOR TWO VOICES, a Newbery Honor Award for GRAVEN IMAGES, the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction for BULL RUN, and was a National Book Award finalist for BREAKOUT. He lives on the central coast of California.

For more information, visit paulfleischman.net.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Are modern humans and institutions like Ancient Greece?, August 14, 2003

By 

Govindan Nair (Vienna, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dateline: Troy (Hardcover)

I have read, both in my childhood and adulthood, many different versions of the Trojan War. The version in this book is well written for both adult and younger audiences.

What is most interesting in this book, however, is its attempt in every page to relate something about behaviors and practices in Ancient Greece to those we find in modern times. The author very ably does this by placing selected newspaper articles - mostly from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s - across each page of the the text as the story of the Trojan War unfolds.

Thus, the book presents subtle comparisons between King Priam's consultation of the Priest of Apollo and a newspaper report of how former President Reagan and his wife used astrology; the competition among Greek godesses to find the fairest among them with a study in the 1990s by some Pennsylvania scientists on how infants respond differently to images of pretty and plain looking women; the spreading of disinformation during the Trojan War to the modern use of psychological warfare; and other comparisons between Ancient Greece and the modern world.

This book thus provides both adult and young readers a foundation to dialogue on how human civlization and institutions have both evolved - and also remained constant in some respects - throughout the ages. This is a very interesting and commendable effort by the author.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dateline Troy, April 12, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Dateline: Troy (Hardcover)

This book is about how events over 1,000 years ago still occure in the news today. In the book Paul Fleishman recreates events of the Battle of Troy and finds clippings of newspaper articles that are similsr to the events. An example was during the Battle of Troy servants sacrificed cattle for Zeus so the Greeks could get an edge over the Trojans. The artical reads" Woman kills herself after war protest." As you can seeevents still make headlines about things similar to events that happened in the past. Overall I liked the book.

5.0 out of 5 stars A demonstration that ancient history is not really all that ancient, May 24, 2011

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Dateline : Troy (Paperback)

The approach taken in the teaching of history in this book is rather unusual and in my opinion very successful. The epic Trojan War where the Greeks and Trojans fought for years is one of the linchpins of Western Civilization. That event is taken as the fundamental theme for this book, yet there are also references to modern times.
For each two-page section, on the left page there is a note about an aspect of the Trojan War. They range from descriptions of the battles to the undercurrents involving everything from the actions of the gods to the jealousies between the leaders. On the right page there is an image of pages from modern newspapers where the contents show that nothing about war has really changed over the course of several millennia. The text in the images of the newspapers demonstrates situations very similar to what took place in the Trojan War. Those that advocate peace when war is imminent are generally ridiculed and those that advocate war find that it was not the simple thing that they claimed it would be.
History is best learned when the events can be related to what has happened more recently. It is for that reason that I consider this book an excellent resource for teaching young people why ancient history is not really so ancient.