Reading Guide: City of the Plague God

This is a digital product. It will be delivered via email as a PDF.

The western world is built so heavily on Greek and Roman mythology that it’s easy to forget the rest of the world wasn’t shaped by the squabbles between Zeus and Poseidon. Mesopotamian mythology contains some of the world’s oldest stories, and City of the Plague God brings these stories to present-day New York City, where a teenage Muslim son of immigrants is the only person who can save the world from the god of plague and war. If you want to explore the mythology of Mesopotamia and travel through the mythic landscape of the Middle East, this is the adventure story you’ve been waiting for. It’s also a surprisingly tender story about making peace with loss, finding a place as an immigrant in an increasingly fearful world, and the power of stories to shape reality. Our students read this with a couple of different versions of the Gilgamesh story (I included one in the Week 2 lessons) as part of our ancient history unit.

This 16-page reading guide breaks Elatsoe down into a 5-week literature unit, including a week a final project that asks students to design their own hero. This unit is designed for middle grades student at the Academy, but it could also work for a high school level unit.