Ranofer wants only one thing in the world: to be a master goldsmith like his beloved father was. But how can he when he is all but imprisoned by his evil half brother, Gebu? Ranofer knows the only way he can escape Gebu's abuse is by changing his destiny. But can a poor boy with no skills survive on the cutthroat streets of ancient Thebes? Then Ranofer finds a priceless golden goblet in Gebu's room and he knows his luck - and his destiny - are about to change.

fair

A great historical fiction story. I'll be honest tho at times I was more interested in ancient Egyptian crafts than I was the overarching plot but that's probably just me. ( )

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I had a hard time putting this book down. There was a great deal of action that moved right along and a lot of information about Ancient Egypt. ( )

“Ranofer tried the box first. He found nothing there…..The chest looked no more promising……There was something dark and curving in a corner, wrapped in a scrap of cotton rag….He tugged it out, jerked the cloth away impatiently and went numb all over with the shock of what he saw. There in his hand lay a gold goblet more beautiful than the sun.”
“The Golden Goblet” by Eloise Jarvis McGraw is a book about an orphaned Egyptian boy named Ranofer. He only has an older half-brother named Gebu. This book is about Ranofer’s adventure to find who is stealing gold from the goldsmith shop where he works and how do they do it. See is helped by Heqet, his best friend, and by an Ancient who sells papyrus, and his old yet happy companion, Lotus the donkey. Together, they can find out who is stealing the gold from the shop! When Ranofer is close to solving the case, Gebu tells Ranofer that tomorrow will be his last day working at the goldsmith shop and he will be an apprentice at the stonecutting shop from now on!
“The Golden Goblet” is a great book that I would recommend to anyone. The book is very interesting because it is about an Egyptian boy’s life and his problems that he had to encounter along the way. It’s a mix of adventure, mystery, and a culture that no longer exists. ( )

Ranofer is a boy working in a goldsmiths shop in ancient Egypt. He longs to be a true goldsmith, but his guardian, a cruel and abusive half brother, Gebu, won't allow him a full apprenticeship. When the boy learns that his brother has been using him to steal small amounts of gold from the shop, he tries, with the help of two friends (one his own age, the other a very old man) to find a way to stop his brother's theft without being accused himself.
When he is no longer useful to Gebu, the brother pulls Ranofer from the goldsmith and takes him on at his own stonemasons shop, which the boy loathes completely. But he soon realizes that Gebu is involved in even more serious crimes than stealing smiges of gold from goldsmiths. He and his friends will have a difficult time figuring out what his new crime is, and an even more difficult time bringing him to justice.
The plot was intriguing enough to keep my interest throughout the book, and the setting in ancient Egypt added interest. The story is totally plot driven, surging forward at all times, with no sidetracking at all for additional character development or subplots. Indeed, there isn't a single female character in the book until about the last ten pages or so. ( )

Love It!! ( )

I finished this a week ago, but I like to wait until my book group meets to review the books we read together. I often find insight in others impressions. We were mixed with this title. Some of us loved it and others didn't like it at all. Several of us found it slow going at the beginning, but enjoyed the suspense at the end. I loved the craft descriptions and others found them tedious. A good discussion ensued. It seems like a book that boys interested in history might enjoy. I think it has held up well over the years. ( )

Kirkus Reviews

"An exhilarating story of the arduous fulfillment of a boy's dream . . . We are given a most worthy hero in Ranofer, one who struggles with his own fears and ideals, who smarts under his own cowardice, but who finds the power to rise to his own strength. This plus the vividly detailed setting make the book an excellent choice."

This Newbery Honor book is part of the 6th grade curriculum in my kids' district, and my now-7th-grader wanted me to read it too. (FWIW, it was his second favorite assigned book in 6th grade--The Phantom Tollbooth was #1.)

Ranofer, recently orphaned, is now living with and working for his much older half brother Gebu. With his goldsmith father's death went his dreams of being apprenticed to one of the master goldsmiths in ancient Thebes. Gebu is a bully, and is not good to Ranofer. Can Ranofer solve the mystery of Gebu's nighttime forays? And can he find a way to be an apprentice goldsmith?

This novel has good middle-grade pacing, and lots of age appropriate information on Ancient Egypt. ( )

In sixth grade, this was the worst book I'd ever read. ( )

I love historical fiction and was prepared to like this but I was disappointed. There are many interesting historical facts but the pace was too slow until the very end and the humor fell flat. ( )

It isn’t often that a book throws you into the world of Ancient Egypt with such perfection that you move from cover to cover as easily as you’d travel down the Nile. This is the case with The Golden Goblet, a winner of the Newberry Honor that should have managed to claim the full award. While reading I found myself realizing that the descriptions were perfect replications of the lives painted on the walls of the tombs, that it was as if those paintings had come to life, as they were meant to when they were drawn onto the walls to guide those in the afterlife.

Though the mystery is somewhat obvious for an adult mind, the read itself is not to be missed. Not once did I put the book down to think “that wouldn’t have happened” or “they would never have said that.” If it were possible for someone to have lived in the time of the story, come back and written this book, I could easily believe that was exactly what had happened in the process of creating this book. Time travel is possible, just open the cover and begin your journey. ( )

My mom got this one for my kids about a year ago, and they were just not interested at all. So it's sat around. I finally picked it up to take a look. It's a Newberry honor book, so I figured it was probably worth reading.

In fact, I did enjoy it. It's about a boy, Ranofer, whose father has recently died. His father was a goldsmith and he was training Ranofer in the trade. But now Ranofer lives with his brutal half brother Gebu, who alternately beats and berates Ranofer and makes him his own apprentice as a stonecutter. Then Ranofer begins to notice that Gebu has more money than he should. Where is he getting it? And what about the golden goblet of the title?

I would recommend this one to kids or teens interested in ancient Egypt, especially boys.

CMB ( )

Published in the same year as The Bronze Bow (which perhaps explains why it received only a Newbery Honor award), The Golden Goblet is an excellent mystery set in ancient Egypt. I would recommend reading the first two or three chapters aloud, and then letting the student finish it on his own. The first chapters can be discouraging for some readers, although the story picks up by the third chapter.

Ranofer's dream is to be a goldsmith, but his greedy and abusive brother, Gebu, has other plans for him.
When Ranofer finds out Gebu is stealing-and that he was using Ranofer to help him-what can he do? If he tells the officials he will get himself hanged.
Can he, even with the help of his closest friends,put a stop to Gebu's stealing? And will he get up the courage to tell his closest friends? ( )

Another tale from ancient Egypt by the author of "Mara, Daughter of the Nile". "Goblet" tells the tale of a orphaned boy, Ranofer, who is at the mercy of his abusive half brother, Gebu. When the tale starts out, Ranofer is working as a gofer in a goldsmith's shop. Somebody has been stealing small amounts of gold from the shop and Ranofer begins to suspect that Gebu is involved. What follows is a complicated tale of intrigue. Well, complicated for a kids' book, anyway. Over all, it was well done. To read it would be a quite enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. I'm glad I checked it out.
--J. ( )

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