Talk about nasty sibling rivalry: twelve-year-old Cleopatra VII rightly fears that her oldest sister wants to assassinate her and rule Egypt. Cleopatra has to be wary at the royal palace --- her father, King Ptolemy XII, is in hiding, a deadly snake has killed a slave, and the food-tasters (the front line of defense against poisoned dinners) often drop dead in the line of duty. Luckily, the princess has bravery and intellect to spare. This is a girl who keeps a pet leopard and who disguises herself to explore the streets of coastal Alexandria --- a city whose namesake and conqueror, Alexander the Great, lies mummified in an outdoor tomb. When she gets worried, she calls on the strength of the goddess Isis and of her heroine, Queen Nefertiti.

In down-to-earth diary entries that span three years (57-55 BC), the future queen of Egypt tells of life under the Roman Empire. When Alexandria gets too dangerous, Cleopatra escapes with her bodyguard Puzo and her servant Neva to Rome, which she describes as a hot, smelly city of fabulous architecture and terrible filth. There she meets her future lover, Marc Antony; works to keep her hard-drinking dad out of trouble; and wonders whether she'll survive long enough to return to her native land.

Even though the entries are fictional (from the pen of historian Kristiana Gregory), the vivid prose will make readers wish they could travel through time to see what life was really like for an exiled royal teenager. The young Cleopatra, who in fact did speak several languages including Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, communicates with Roman politicians, Jewish scholars, and people of various African tribes. Following Cleo's "firsthand" story, the volume provides real family trees and illustrations of such sites as the Lighthouse of Alexandria (which the daring diarist climbs in order to look out to sea). Cleopatra's breathless narrative, along with the more official textbook-style afterward, will stimulate imaginations and show that Egypt is more than sand, pyramids, and sphinxes.

   --- Reviewed by Nathalie op de Beeck