The title says it all, really. Cleopatra VII, the future Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt, is transported light years into the future to a galaxy far, far away on her fifteenth birthday. She is supposedly there to fulfil a prophecy to save the universe from the invading forces of the evil emperor Xaius Octavian. That doesn’t get her out of school, and she enrolls in Yasiro Academy. For much of the series, Cleopatra tries to balance daring missions in enemy territory with adjusting to school life in the 30,000th century. The art style is fantastic, full of color and movement, particularly during the elaborate, fast-paced action sequences. It will appeal to fans of Raina Telgemeier’s Drama and Ghosts.

Cleo is fun, spunky, and relatable, especially when she struggles to focus on schoolwork with a whole new universe to explore. Mike Maihack has revealed in a tweet that he wrote Cleopatra as having ADHD. She had found her life as an Egyptian princess frustrating and restrictive, and she loves the freedom that she gets in her new time, even as she adapts to a strange world filled with aliens, talking cats, ray guns, and electricity. However, Cleopatra also feels the pressures of her situation, and it takes a toll. Over the series, she develops some depression as the war moves ever closer to her new home.

Like the Harry Potter books, this series takes a dark turn, and the characters are forced to face the realities of a galaxy at war. Many characters die, and almost everyone becomes a refugee at some point in the story. Ironically, the fact that Cleopatra is a historical character keep the series from getting too dark. As bad as things look, readers can be confident that Cleopatra will be back in ancient Egypt by the time she’s seventeen to meet Julius Caesar for the first time. That said, there’s very little about history in this series. It’s a fun space opera filled with clever ancient Egyptian cultural references and interesting riffs on Egyptian religion. – Krishni Burns

I think this is a great book for teenagers and kids because it is in space and for people trying to learn about space and CLEOPATRA and it is really fun to read. - Casey (age 7)

* For further information on the Our Mythical Childhood Survey, please refer to the website of the project “Our Mythical Childhood” [link: http://omc.obta.al.uw.edu.pl/], led by Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales,” University of Warsaw, Poland, with the participation of Bar Ilan University, University of New England, University of Roehampton, University of Yaoundé 1, and other affiliated scholars, within the funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement No 681202).