Magical Museum: Ancient Egypt

 
4.3 (2)
 
0.0 (0)
193 0
Magical Museum: Ancient Egypt
Age Range
6+
Release Date
August 06, 2024
ISBN
978-8000070926
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When a magical scarab awakens a museum exhibit, a mummified cat leads kids on an enchanting adventure, teaching them about Ancient Egyptian history, life, and culture.
Prepare to be transported deep into the mesmerizing heart of Ancient Egypt. As you open the book's pages, you unwittingly awaken a mystical scarab, setting in motion a thrilling adventure back through history. Join a mummified cat on a quest to capture the scarab and restore normality to the museum. In their chase through the museum's various rooms, the scarab breathes life into ancient exhibits, immersing readers in the rich tapestry of Ancient Egyptian culture and daily life.

Magical Museum: Ancient Egypt strikes just the right balance between learning and entertainment, making it the ideal choice for parents and educators seeking to inspire young minds by making education fun. With its interactive story and captivating illustrations, it seamlessly introduces kids ages 6–9 to the wonders of Ancient Egypt, cultivating a love for history and exploration, sparking kids’ imaginations, and prompting them to be active participants in their own education.

Editor reviews

2 reviews
entertaining and educational illustrated book
Overall rating
 
4.7
Writing Style
 
4.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
 
5.0
Learning Value
 
5.0
MAGICAL MUSEUM: ANCIENT EGYPT is an illustrated nonfiction book that takes the reader through what we know about Ancient Egypt. There is a light plot throughout of the things in the museum coming to life due to the magical golden scarab, which must be caught to put things right. A mummified cat helps the reader to chase it through the pages.

What I loved: This is a pretty thorough and informative read, targeted at middle to older elementary school aged readers. The level of information and phrasing works well for this age. While the majority of the book focuses on what is known about mummies, pyramids, and related rituals, the book also includes information about what we know about the language/hieroglyphs, games people played, and how they structured their towns/societies. This was really interesting information, and the accompanying illustrations helped to bring it all to life visually for the reader.

Final verdict: With a conversational tone and wide breadth of information, MAGICAL MUSEUM: ANCIENT EGYPT takes the reader on quite the ride through what we know about Ancient Egypt in an approachable and colorful way.
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Good Overview of Life in Ancient Egypt
Overall rating
 
4.0
Writing Style
 
4.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
 
4.0
Learning Value
 
4.0
Opening this book awakens a sacred scarab and unleashes him on a museum of ancient Egypt. Never fear, for a mummified cat has also come to life, and promises to help the reader catch the scarab, encountering a lot of information about this fascinating ancient culture in the meantime. This starts with an explanation of the mummification process, which is kept brief and factual, although it does discuss the fact that people's internal organs were taken out and stored in canopic jars. Older elementary students will love the details, but it might be a bit much for younger ones. There's a nice array of mummies shown, with brief information about their dates and roles. Sarcophagi and tombs are also covered, and I even learned a few things, like the fact that before pyramids, people were laid to rest in smaller tombs called mastabas. I've studied the ancient world quite a bit, so if I learn something from a book, it's got to be packed with information!

I was expecting that this book would just talk about the pyramid and the mummy, but we also get to follow the scarab and cat into the museum cinema, and get quite a complete look at life in Egpyt as well! It discusses they ways that both the wealthy and the not so wealthy went about their days, and even has a brief discussion on the rights and roles of women. Furniture, art, food, fun and games, and clothing and makeup all are covered; it's not enough information for a school project on one of the smaller aspects of culture, but certainly has enough for a general report! I liked that there was both a table of contents as well as an index at the end of the book.

Good Points
While the cat and the scarab (as well as a cadre of rats making snarky remarks in the footnotes) might seem a little goofy, they are an easy way to get younger readers interested in history. I would have adored this as a child, and certainly would have read and reread this book. It would also be a good accompaniment to some of the middle grade fictional tales set in ancient Egypt, like Moss' Pharoah's Secret, Napoli's Lights on the Nile, and Rubalcaba's The Wadjet Eye, which starts with the main character mummifying his mother. Magical Museum would be a great way to understand the starting chapters in that story.

The illustrations are very helpful, and do a good job of showing what the artifacts looked like, as well as the settings in which they were found and used. There are funny touches, like the mummified cat and the rats, who show up in unusual places, but in general, there is a real effort to replicate the museum setting and to use the illustrations in an informative way.


In my state, ancient Egypt is studied in the sixth grade social studies curriculum, but it's never too early to learn about different places in the world and their history. Shelve this book in the 932's (the Dewey Decimal System number for Egypt up to 640!) along with Berger's The Unofficial Guide to the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife, England's Mummies Unwrapped, or Honovich's 1,000 Facts About Ancient Egypt. For older readers who want more information, pick up Fleming's excellent The Curse of the Mummy: Uncovering Tutankhamun's Tomb, which does a great job of showing that there really WASN'T a curse!
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