![]() ![]() Rumford also makes use of Arabic maps of the period, and Arabic calligraphy, resulting in a beautiful book! I did have one moment of doubt, when Rumford depicted Ibn Battuta's father wearing eyeglasses, but after digging around and learning that eyeglasses are attested to as early as 1290, in northern Italy, it is possible they made their way to Morocco by the early 1300s, when Ibn Battuta was a boy. The artwork is lovely, featuring deeply colored pages with panels of text and gorgeous paintings. The text is fairly simple, giving an outline of its main figure's adventures, along with quotations in Arabic and Chinese, from various sources, including Ibn Battuta's own narrative. I am so glad to have that rectified, as I found Traveling Man: The Journey of Ibn Battuta, 1325-1354 both informative and beautiful. Eventually, after thirty years of wandering, he headed for home, where his incredible adventures were set down in writing.Īlthough long familiar with Italian explorer Marco Polo, whose twelfth-century travels from Europe to China did much to open up Europe to trade with Asia, I was unfamiliar with the figure of Ibn Battuta before picking up Rumford's book. ![]() His voyages took him to Sumatra, and eventually to China, where he reached Cambaluc (Beijing). He traveled through Central Asia, along the silk road, spent time in India, and then sailed to the Maldives, Sri Lanka and modern-day Bangladesh. From Jerusalem he went south to Mecca, and from there to Baghdad and then Isfahan (in Persia). Setting out from his home he travelled across northern Africa, through Egypt and into the Levant. Author/illustrator James Rumford, whose many wonderful picture-book biographies include From the Good Mountain: How Gutenberg Changed the World and Sequoyah: The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing, turns here to the story of the fabulous journey of Ibn Battuta, the famed Moroccan traveler who covered over 75,000 miles during the course of his 14th-century wanderings. ![]()
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