Jane O'Connor,
The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China.
Viking, 2002.

Author Jane O'Connor begins The Emperor's Silent Army with a compelling anecdote to pull in young readers: in 1974, three Chinese farmers are digging a well when their shovels strike the hard clay head of a man “who stares back at them, open-eyed and amazingly real looking.”

More than two thousand years ago, China's first emperor, Qin Shihuang, built an army of “7,500 clay soldiers on horseback,” believing that they would protect him in the afterlife. The soldiers were buried in several pits near the emperor's tomb, which has never been excavated. It was thought that the soldiers would magically come alive and fend off enemies. O'Connor's admiration for the artistry of the clay figures is apparent: “Some soldiers seem lost in thought, possibly dreaming of their return home; others look proud and confident. Each is a distinct work of art.”

The Emperor's Silent Army is heavily illustrated with dramatic photographs of the sculpted soldiers and horses, Chinese engravings, silk tapestries and garments, paintings and portraits. A single map, slim on details, shows the location of the terra-cotta army and the boundaries of the ancient empire.

O'Connor says that the soldiers and horses lost their bright paint in the excavation process, but young readers might want to know more. How were the soldiers dug up? How many were damaged by their long stay underground? And why are there no photos of their bronze swords, daggers, and arrowheads?

The Emperor's Silent Army opens a window onto the ancient world, which many young readers may know very little about. For the curious child, this book could serve as a launch pad for a study of what other cultures were doing at the same time. The young researcher would discover, among other things, that people on the coast of Peru were building elaborate, gold-filled tombs for their rulers and that the people in several cities of east Africa ran bustling international trading centers.

We need more books that encourage such investigations and discoveries.

Lisa Westberg Peters

Summer 2002