It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book designed for such a young audience.  This one would be considered middle grade (I would say roughly ages 8 to 12-ish), based mostly on the ages of the characters, the situations and language.

Anything with Egypt pretty much immediately catches my eye and if I remember correctly, I saw this one on the summer reading bookshelf in Barnes and Noble (I’m constantly surprised by what’s on those shelves and I love looking through them).  So I snagged it, read the back cover and I may just have peed a little.  While the summary didn’t mimic my childhood exactly, it came pretty close, what with my obsession with ancient Egypt at that very age.  I mean, I was reading pop-up books on how to mummify a person when I was 8.  Needless to say, I bought it.

What it’s about is the main MC, April, moves in with her grandmother and befriends another girl named Melanie who just so happens to have a crazy love of Egypt just like her.  At first April is a little stuck on herself because she comes from Hollywood and can’t get over the faux attitude but Melanie chips it (and her false eyelashes) away and she finally becomes a pretty normal chick.  Before long four other kids join their Egypt game and it’s not long before their land of pretend starts to cross the lines of reality.

I thought this was a freakin’ cute book.  I was a little disappointed, but self-imposed, because it didn’t turned out to be as fantasy-laced as I thought it was going to be.  I was expecting time warps and trips back to the ancient land but everything was very much grounded in reality despite the amount of imagination used in this game.

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