Book One of The Mesopotamian
Adventures of Iskander Wood
He wanted to play soccer. He got history's most brutal empire.
Iskander Wood lands in Nineveh in 653 BC, in the reign of Ashurbanipal, with a war about to begin.
Out 15 OctoberPaperback and Kindle
Lion hunts. Spies in every shadow. The oldest library on earth. And a king marching on his own brother.
And a twelve-year-old holding a medallion, trying to stop a war.
Twelve-year-old Iskander Wood lives in Iraq and hates history. Then his archaeologist father drags him to a dig, an old monk presses a medallion into his hand, and suddenly it is 653 BC. He is standing in Nineveh, the largest city in the world, at the heart of ancient Mesopotamia.
Down in the slums, a kind family takes him in, and the king's spies are watching. Up in the palace, where giant winged bulls guard the gates, Iskander is welcomed as a messenger of the gods. He becomes friends with Ashurbanipal, the Librarian King, who tucks both a sword and a scribe's reed into his belt.
Now Ashurbanipal is weighing a new war, this time against his own brother, and Iskander's only hope is to talk this ruthless king into justice, mercy, and humility instead.
Can he stop the war? Can he get home? And what is the secret of the royal library?
All three photographed by the author and his son at the Baghdad Museum.
Ashurbanipal, his brother, and the war between them.
The royal library of more than 30,000 clay tablets, some on display in the British Museum today.
The Assyrian spy network.
Nineveh, mapped gate by gate, standing where Mosul stands today.
Lost cities found in declassified 1960s spy-satellite photographs. The author learned this at a real dig site.
Mar Mattai, the monastery in the mountains, is real, and monks still worship there.
Every chapter numbered in real cuneiform.
Iskander's adventure is fiction. The world he lands in is not.
Thirty-three chapters, most under ten minutes read aloud, that often leave kids asking for "just one more." Two illustrated maps inside, plus a glossary, a timeline, and a dozen fun facts in the back.
Assyria's cruelty is part of the story, but it is never graphic. It covers Nineveh, Ashurbanipal's library, cuneiform, the lamassu, the deportation of whole peoples, and the archaeology that recovered it.
Hand it to a reader who has outgrown Magic Tree House, or who finished Percy Jackson wanting the real ancient world.
Both of these are free, and neither one asks for your email address.
Free sample
Chapters one and two, set exactly as they appear in the book, ending at the moment everything goes black.
Download the PDFFor families, co-ops and classrooms
Vocabulary, discussion questions, both maps, and a cuneiform activity.
Download the PDFThe series grew out of the Watt family's days at Iraq's ancient sites. Dr. Kramer, the archaeologist in the book, is based on a real one the author met at a dig, and a 2023 visit to the Mar Mattai monastery was part of the inspiration for the story. The author and his sons famously took a swim next to a partially submerged lamassu at an off-the-path archaeological site along a stream.
Jamie Watt lives with his wife and three sons in Erbil, Iraq, where they love exploring the ruins of the cradle of civilization.
The Mesopotamian Adventures of Iskander Wood was born out of their imaginative play at Iraq's uncharted historic sites, and an endless curiosity about what it would have been like to experience these ancient kingdoms firsthand.
He has lived in Erbil for over a decade and writes for the Kurdish Globe. The Secret of the Royal Library is his first novel.
For updates, follow along on Instagram at @jamiewattauthor.
For kids who want
“one more chapter.”
For parents who want
Mesopotamia to stick.
Book One of The Mesopotamian Adventures of Iskander Wood, set in the world's first empire.
Out 15 OctoberPaperback and Kindle
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