Plucked from his peaceful life in a village near the Great Wall, 11-year-old Shen suddenly finds himself the favorite musician at the court of China's first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi. Shen;s music is the only thing that can calm the emperor, but he is unknowingly drawn into a plot to kill his master.
As a graphic novel, this did not have much novel to it. The story was very short and had no depth to it. Where this book did impress me though was in the facts it presented throughout. The actual graphic novel wound it's way along the sides and the bottom of the pages leaving the entire middle of the book open for the amazingly detailed illustrations, cutaways and facts about things like Empires, The Great Wall, Food, Arts, Trade, The Terra-Cotta Army, Dress, Religion and more. In versions featuring Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome as well, I will be heading back to the library to check out more of this fantastic series.
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