About this item
Percy Jackson meets Arabian fairy tales in this stunning middle grade fantasy debut about a girl who becomes the guardian of Ali Baba's legendary treasure.. Believe in fairy tales.. Sahara Rashad lives by logic. Loves science. And always has a plan. Except her dad just whisked her away to her uncle's wedding in Egypt, upending every single plan she had for the summer.. In Cairo, Sahara's days are filled with family - and mystery. First, Sahara's cousins claim the pretentious bride-to-be is actually a witch. Then her late mother's necklace starts glowing - and disappears.. Sahara's attempts to recover the necklace lead her to the greatest mystery yet. Deep in an underground chamber lies Ali Baba's magical treasure. Hidden from a line of sorcerers who threatened to use its powers for evil, the treasure was given to Sahara's ancestor Morgana for safekeeping and passed down from mother to daughter for generations.
About the Author
Nedda Lewers is an Egyptian American author and former teacher. She writes books that take children on fun adventures and feature characters who are trying to make sense of the big, complicated world and their place in it. As a kid, Nedda lived in Queens, NY, where she spent many Sundays at the local library deciding how many books she could possibly carry on the fifteen-minute walk home. Every summer, she visited Cairo, where her parents are from, getting to know her big extended family. Even though it wasn't easy growing up with one foot in America and the other in Egypt, Nedda cherishes how that experience has given her a rich and expansive perspective from which she draws to write her stories. She has an MSEd from Bank Street and enjoyed a career of learning from her early childhood students. In 2017, she moved with her daughters and husband to Los Angeles and decided to focus on her writing. Her favorite place to craft stories is an old but loved striped chair in her living room with her dogs nestled at her side. Nedda is repped by Kelly Dyksterhouse at the Tobias Literary Agency.
