Ewa Nowacka, Proszę bilet na wieżę Babel, Wrocław: Siedmioróg, 1998.

Ewa Nowacka, Rogi Minotaura, Wrocław: Siedmioróg, 1998.

Ewa Nowacka, Jak okiełznać wronego rumaka, Wrocław: Siedmioróg, 1999.

Based on: Katarzyna Marciniak, Elżbieta Olechowska, Joanna Kłos, Michał Kucharski (eds.), Polish Literature for Children & Young Adults Inspired by Classical Antiquity: A Catalogue, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2013, 444 pp.

This is the first book in the series Skrzydła czasu [The Wings of Time]. Paweł, through an accident with a television game brought by his father, is transported with his cat Pusia to ancient Egypt. Confused and terrified, the boy wants to return as soon as possible to Warsaw to his parents and younger siblings. Unfortunately no one is able to help him. In Egypt, Pusia is treated like a small goddess. Paweł knows the Adventures of Hercules and recalls there were goddesses, Pallas Athena and Hera. He also remembers, that when he was a little child, his mother read him mythical tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Finally the bright boy realizes that his cat is considered a sacred animal in Egypt. Unfortunately, Pawi (as the Egyptians call him) offends the children of the Egyptian queen and is condemned to labour on the West Bank of the river; his cat Pusia is taken to the palace. Paweł becomes assistant to a hieroglyphs painter, but is brought back to the palace when Pusia falls seriously ill. He nurses the animal back to health but is still unable to find a way back to his family. In the end, mainly thanks to his cat, a prophetic dream and the sacred bull Apis, he returns home with Pusia.

The author uses the motif of time travel to show the child reader the reality of ancient Egypt. The Egyptian part of the storyline is set in the times of queen Hatshepsut of the 18th Dynasty. The boy protagonist sees her as a pharaoh and is surprised by her wearing male garments, a fake beard and regalia indicating her power. The queen is distant and appears only during an official occasion. As for other historical figures – the boy also meets royal children: the queen’s daughter, Princess Neferure and her stepbrother Thutmose III, a future ruler, who behaves exactly like Paweł’s younger siblings – the children get into a fight about who will get the precious cat. 

The background created by Nowacka to show Egyptian antiquity mostly includes elements of everyday life: irrigation devices used to increase crops, modest huts, the contrast between a miserable village and a monumental temple decorated with small drawings (which Paweł recognizes as hieroglyphics), the appearance of people (clothes, hairstyles, jewellery) and the treatment they receive (threats, beatings, humiliation, imprisonment or strenuous work), the burial customs, religious rituals or worship of animals. 

When the protagonist time travels to ancient Egypt, anytime he does not know or understand something, he tries to make it more familiar by comparing it to something less distant. This is the reason why, when he hears an Egyptian call Pusia goddess, he tries to recall all the information about goddesses he has ever known. He mentions the Adventures of Hercules, where Pallas Athena appears in a helmet and with a spear, as well as Hera, who sends two big snakes to strangle the newborn future slayer of the dreadful Hydra. Paweł does not remember much more about Greek mythology, because his mother read Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne to him a long time ago, in his early childhood, and he is now ten years old. This mention of Hawthorne as the boy’s source of mythological knowledge shows the phenomenal popularity of the 19th-century American author in Poland, his book was published and reprinted many times*, was present in every public library and widely read by children and to children by their parents.

* Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mity greckie, trans. M. J. Lutosławska, Warszawa : Instytut Wydawniczy "Biblioteka Polska", 1937, 1947, 1948; Warszawa: Nasza Księgarnia, 1960.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Opowieści z zaczarowanego lasu: mity greckie, trans. Krystyna Tarnowska, Andrzej Konarek, Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy „Nasza Księgarnia”, 1973, 1980, 1987, 1988, 1989; Warszawa: Votum, 1992.

Świerczyńska-Jelonek, Danuta, "Różne światy powieści Ewy Nowackiej", Guliwer 3 (2004): 5–13.