Iter Mīrābile Dennis et Debrae

Iter Mīrābile Dennis et Debrae (The Wonderful Journey of Dennis and Debra) is a sheltered-vocabulary Latin novella published by Chris Buczek in 2016. It tells the story of the two friends Dennis and Debra, who go back to ancient Rome in a time machine and bring back Julius Caesar to present-day America. It is notable for its time-traveling premise, featuring elements from ancient Rome and modern times, and the fact that it has few glosses and no illustrations.

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Reading level

The author’s introduction states that this novella is for learners in the “late first year or early second year” of study (p. 3). Comprehensible Antiquity puts this novella at Level F, and gives a full review here, where he notes that it would be appropriate for second- or third-year readers. In his ranking of 13 novellas, John Piazza ranks it right in the middle (7th out of 13). It was also reviewed in The Classical Outlook (Vol. 91, No. 4); the review can be found here.

Diverse & Multicultural Identities

For information about how representation of multicultural and diverse identities is analyzed in LNDb, see here.

Parallel cultures

No depictions identified.

Gender

Features one cis male main character (Dennis) and one cis female main character (Debra). Features no transgender main characters.

Sexual identity

There are several depictions of heterosexual identity. Both Dennis and Debra have a mother and a father, and Dennis and Debra eventually fall in love and get married.

SES/class

No depictions identified.

Religion

No depictions identified.

Disability

No depictions identified.

Language Statistics

Vocabulary

Word counts may differ from the author's advertised figures. See here for information about how words are counted in LNDb.

Word List

A complete word list for Iter Mīrābile Dennis et Debrae can be found here.

Glosses

This novella contains glosses in the form of footnotes with English translations.

Of the 226 unique words (not counting proper nouns) used in the text, 15 of them (6.6%) are glossed at their first appearance in the text. Of the 2672 total words in the text, 38 of them (1.4%) are glossed.

Glossary

This novella contains a Latin-English glossary, with words listed by headword only. The glossary is complete; save for a few minor oversights, every word is included.

Syntax

Word counts may differ from the author's advertised figures. See here for information about how words are counted in LNDb.

Summary

The graph above shows the vocabulary and syntax of the novella relative to the other novellas studied. A higher position on the graph means that this novella scores higher than average in this criterion. These scores are not necessarily tied to reading level; this graph is descriptive of the novella's language rather than predictive of its difficulty.

Genre & Sources

This novella is in the genre of modern. (Though time travel takes the characters to ancient Rome, the bulk of the story takes place in modern America.)

It is not an adaptation of any particular piece of Classical literature, though Julius Caesar and his daughter Julia are characters.

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Dennis and Debra are friends. Debra receives a time machine for her birthday, but Dennis takes it and ends up in ancient Rome. Dennis meets Julius Caesar and tells him about America, and Caesar, interested in finding out about America, travels back to the modern city of Rome, New York, with Dennis. Dennis takes him to Washington, where Caesar is amazed at the Neoclassical buildings and requests to meet the president. They go to the White House and have a conversation with the president. Meanwhile, Debra acquires a second time machine and goes to ancient Rome to look for Dennis. Julia, Caesar's daughter, says that Caesar and Dennis have gone to America. Debra returns to America, bringing Dennis an elephant as a souvenir. When they meet again, Dennis proposes to Debra and they get married. Caesar, after briefly trying to acquire the elephant for himself, decides to return to Rome. Years later, Dennis and Debra destroy the time machine so that their children don't get into mischief with it.

First 100 Words

Underlined words are glossed in the text.

Dennis est puer bonus. Debra est puella bona. Dennis et Debra sunt amīcī. Puer et puella in urbe habitant. Urbs est in Novō Eborācō. Debra patrem, mātrem, et frātrem habet. Dennis patrem et matrem habet, sed frātrem nōn habet. Frāter Debrae est amīcus Dennis.
Nunc est diēs nātālis Debrae. Frāter sorōrem suam amat. Itaque frāter māchinam sororī fēcit. Māchina est mīrābilis! Māchina per tempus iter facere potest! Frāter Debrae māchinam dat. Debra est laeta quod nunc māchinam novam habet.
Sed Dennis secrētum habet! Dennis māchinam vult. Dennis est trīstis quod māchinam nōn habet. Dennis ad domum Debrae it. Dennis māchinam videt. ...

Studies show that a reader should understand 98% of the words in a text in order to have a good chance of comprehending it. One rule of thumb is to read the first hundred words and count the number of unfamiliar words. If there are two or fewer unfamiliar words, it can be read without much difficulty. Three to five unfamiliar words is possible to read, but may be difficult. If there are six or more unfamiliar words, the text may be too difficult.

Supplementary Materials

John Piazza has created supplemental resources for this book, which he will share upon request.

Presentation

Illustrations?	no
Illustrator	N/A
Macrons?	yes
Font	Times New Roman, 14 pt
Pages of story	31
Total pages	41
Chapters	12

Key Information

Publication date	June 26, 2016
Publisher	Createspace
ISBN	1530806560
ISBN-13	978-1530806560