Be a Scribe!

Michael Hoffen is the youngest-ever recipient of the annual Emerson Prize, awarded by the Concord Review for outstanding promise in history. While still in middle school he was introduced to the joys of translating ancient texts and never looked back. During the pandemic, Michael decided to embark on an ambitious project to bring ancient Egyptian literature to life outside the classroom. Be A Scribe! is Michael's first book in a series intended for young readers. When not chasing down new stories to translate or write, Michael enjoys biking, swimming, and rock climbing. He lives with his family in New York. Dr. Christian Casey is an Egyptologist who specializes in the study of ancient Egyptian languages. He obtained his PhD in Egyptology from Brown University in 2020 and now works as a researcher at Freie Universität Berlin. He is especially interested in sharing the exciting world of ancient Egypt with young people and other interested members of the public. Dr. Jen Thum is an Egyptologist, educator, and curator at the Harvard Art Museums. She studied Egyptology and Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Brown University. Jen's work celebrates the learning potential of ancient material culture, especially across disciplines. She teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, writes and leads workshops about learning with art and artifacts, and is the lead editor of Teaching Ancient Egypt in Museums: Pedagogies in Practice.

AN IMMERSIVE STORY OF DAILY LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT This is an extraordinary translation of a papyrus dating from ancient Egypt’s Middle Kingdom era by Michael Hoffen, the 16-year-old author of Be a Scribe! with the help of co-authors Dr. Christian Casey and Dr. Jen Thum. Michael Hoffen became fascinated by the text, known as The Instruction of Khety, when he learned that it tells the tale of a teenage boy living almost 4,000 years ago—Pepi. Pepi wonders what career path he should choose, an important matter still contemplated today by millions of teenagers forty centuries later. His father Khety takes him on a long journey up the Nile to enroll him in a school far away from home, where Pepi will learn to read and write. Along the way, Khety explains 18 other terrible jobs Pepi could end up having to work at if he is not hired as a scribe. This tale of a teenage boy in ancient Egypt shows readers that working for a living has never been easy! Sail up the Nile with an ancient Egyptian father and son and discover what daily life was like along the way. Experience the wonderful world of ancient Egypt with the help of countless artifacts and paintings. Delight in four-thousand-year-old humor and immerse yourself in the choices facing a teenage boy in Egypt then.