The Egypt Game

Good gift for my bookworm kid sister-in-law!

My daughters school chose this book as her required summer reading between 5th and 6th grade. I had her read it aloud to me at bedtime so I could make sure she was responding to her packet correctly and it was a great book. It covered some historical Egyptian topics in a way that would appeal to younger children while also introducing some points that I wasn’t expecting. For instance, there is someone murdering children, there is a girl being left behind by her narcisstic mom, and there is a scary antique shop owner that people try to avoid. I was confused as to why these topics were being explored in a book that I expected to be only about Egyptian history but I think it was beneficial overall. This book allowed us to have a conversation about the importance of safety and the impact of judgement. We’ve had conversations on this topic several times but now that she’s older I think she was able to understand on a deeper level than she previously had and this book helped her gain perspective on that same level.

It was a favorite book when I was a kid. Such a great story! I bought it for my partner's young daughter and am hoping she loves it as much as I did.

The Egypt Game is a book about some kids who find a spooky, empty backyard behind an old antique store and decide to make it look like ancient Egypt. They start playing this secret game with made-up ceremonies and characters, which helps them become friends even though they are all different. The story gets really exciting and kind of scary when a criminal is loose in the neighborhood, and the kids end up using their game and smarts to help catch the bad guy.

I can't remember how old I was when I first read this book, but having always been a fan of ancient Egypt, I knew from the start I'd enjoy it. The first of our main characters, April, who's also quite interested in historical peoples, starts off feeling bitter and dejected because her semi-famous mother has sent her to live with a grandmother she barely knows, but that quickly changes when she meets Melanie. Melanie is just as imaginative as April, so the two quickly form a bond, and along with Melanie's little brother Marshall, eventually stumble upon a decrepit, empty lot behind a local store. Their new game only includes the three of them at first, then slowly expands to include Elizabeth, the new girl in their apartment building, and Toby and Ken, a couple of popular wise-crackers from their school. As the mystery and intrigue of the Egypt Game grows, so does the danger in their town, though exactly what happens, I'll leave a mystery. Suffice it to say the gang may just be in over their heads.

My 8 year old niece read this and talked about it for months. I love that i gave her something that used to be so special to me growing up and she got the same from it.

The year this book was published was the first time I read it aloud to my sixth grade class. We all fell in love with the characters, except the red hair man with red dots. Every year after that until I retired I read the Egypt Game to my sixth graders. I was asked the first day of school if I was going to read the Egypt Game to them by those who had older brothers, sisters or neighbors who had been in my class before. For over twenty years I read that book aloud to many children and it never lost it's appeal or became out of date. I taught my children that the real test of good literature was that it could pass the test of time. My daughter and I had been talking about the book just a few days before it appeared. When I saw it I had to buy it for a quick reread. It still stood the test of time even though I have been retired for twenty- two years.

I bought this for my son. It was his summer reading for 6th grade. He does not enjoy reading but this kept his attention and he finish the book. He would talk about it with us. It may have been a school assignment but he ended up enjoying reading it also.