Review Detail

The Egypt Game was one of my favorites when I was young and I picked it up recently with some trepidation. Would I still like it after all this time (and no, I won't tell you exactly how long it has been)? I really shouldn't have worried.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder is a wonderful author and she has a gift for timeless stories. Black and Blue Magic is another one of my favorites from her, though that one is harder to find than The Egypt Game.

The Egypt Game starts when April moves in with her grandmother. Her mother is a glamorous Hollywood-ite and April is very reluctant about her new not-so-glamorous accomodations. She soon meets Melanie Ross, who also lives in her grandmother's building and the two become friends even though they have little in common.

One thing they do have in common is imagination and that's how the Egypt Game starts. While reading about Egypt, they become completely entranced with the pomp and circumstance. They find a deserted storage yard behind the Professor's A-Z Antiques store and turn it into their very own Egypt. Melanie's precocious little brother Marshall joins them for the fun.

Soon, two boys from school also discover the fun and join in the play. Everything is going fine until disaster strikes in the neighborhood: a child's murder.

To make a long story short, the Egypt gang winds up ultimately finding the bad guy after some scary events.

Some of the good stuff in this book: learning about responsibility and safety, acceptance, and finding out that things are not always what they seem. It also has all the elements that make up a good story: action, intrigue, mystery...

I highly recommend this book to readers of all ages.