There are so many things to like about this extraordinary book that I had somehow missed previously. I'm actually not sure if I had read it completely through before, probably because it is another novel that I consider over-assigned in schools.'The Egypt Game' also carries the burden of being dated. It was published in 1967 when kids said "neat" a lot more and had to go to the library to find out about ancient Egypt, instead of looking online. No cell phones here. Of course, that could be viewed as a plus.'Imagination is a great thing in long dull hours, but it’s a real curse in a dark alley…,' Snyder tells us, and those words are the key to a story where a darker reality, one not found in most children's books, lurks in the dusty shadows of a town not unlike Berleley, California.What you imagine is never senseless. While it can help you escape your troubles, it can't rescue you. What can rescue you are friends and protectors. Paradoxically, imagination can lead you to them. What better theme for a children's novel than the limitations, as well as the saving graces, of imagination.The protagonist of 'Egypt Game' is a delightfully complex sixth grader, April Hall, willful, stubborn, clever, ready to fight at the slightest of challenges, insecure, vulnerable, and the possessor of a powerful and active imagination, and a high sense of drama. When her mother decides a singing and acting career comes ahead of a daughter, April resentfully goes off to live with her grandmother.Moving into the Casa Rosada apartment building, though, is the beginning of a close connection with Melanie Ross, the luckiest of friendships for April. Melanie is April's match in intelligence and imagination, and far wiser in social matters. It is her influence that helps April to negotiate a new home, a new neighborhood, and a new school.April's protectors are found in unlikely places. One turns out to be Melanie's self-assured and laconic little brother, Marshall. Another is located in the same dusty shadows where evil hides.That is just the beginning of an engaging and expansive cast of characters, of different ages and races. Snyder manages to instill something evocative and real in even the most minor of them, as well as to impart a sense of wonder about ancient Egypt and its mythology that sparked my curiosity, and made 'The Egypt Game' a good companion piece to 'The Red Pyramid.' She also tells a great story.Highly recommended.
Title / Author / Publication Date: The Egypt Game/Zilpha Keatley Snyder/1967Format: PaperbackGenre: Mystery/SuspensePlot Summary: Considerations or precautions for readers advisory: For any kid who has ever found a dusty attic and made it a castle, or a part of the backyard and made it a fairyland, The Egypt Game is for them. The story revolves around two young girls who share a mutual love of hieroglyphics, pyramids, and Egyptology. While walking home one day they discover a loose plank in a fence and beyond that, an empty space behind an old antique shop with various busts of Nefertiti, an Egyptian goddess. The two take over the space, filling it with candles, and scarves, and other objects to add an air of mystery. Soon other kids are invited to join the club, and the children set about making their own version of Egypt come to life. Each child has a role, one is a pharaoh, the other a priestess. One boy brings an old stuffed owl to the space and proclaims him a oracle. Soon they begin to leave written questions to the owl and in the morning, return to find answers. The games come to a halt when a young girl is murdered. Late one night one of the young girls returns to the yard because she forgot her schoolbook. She hears screams and calls for help, but the killer escapes. Later at the police station she helps identify the killer and also confirms the innocence of the police's main suspect, the elderly owner of the antique shop behind which the Egypt game is played. In return for her help, the owner bequeaths the young girl with a key to the backyard, telling her to continue to use the space with her friends whenever she likes. Review citation: N/ASection source used to find the material: Children's Core Collection, Most Highly RecommendedRecommended age: 8 and up
What do You think about The Egypt Game (2009)?
This was my banned book for the WBC challenge. I actually found it buried in a box amongst the Baby-sitters Club, Sweet Valley Twins, A Wrinkle in Time and various other books I collected in my childhood, but I'd never read this one so I decided to pick it up after I saw it listed as a banned book. It was a cute book about a girl named April, who has come to live with her grandmother whom she hardly knows after her flighty actress mother decides to go on tour sans her 11 year old daughter. Lost and confused in a new place, dramatic and strong willed April forms a somewhat unlikely friendship with her neighbor Melanie and the two bond over a love of making up stories and reading about all things having to do with ancient Egypt. The two girls and Melanie's younger brother discover a vacant lot behind a curios shop hidden beyond a barbed wire fence that soon becomes "Egypt" to them, a place where their imaginations can run wild and a place of mystery and sacred ceremonies. But the plot thickens when there is a murder in the neighborhood, a couple of pesky boys find out about their secret place and the oracle that they ask questions to actually begins to answer back. I think that as we grow up, we gradually forget how to "play." My favorite thing about this book was that it made me remember how much fun it was to make up stories and new worlds with friends and act them out.I also have to share a line that I loved that took me back to my grade school/middle school day: "Ken Kamata and Toby Alvillar were just about the most disgusting boys in the sixth grade, in a fascinating sort of way."
—Jessica (j*&p*)
The Egypt Game is a book about a group of latchkey kids growing up in the 1970's in California. These kids all live in the same apartment house, Casa Rosada. April comes from Hollywood where she lived with her mother to live with her grandmother, Caroline. Melanie and Marshall live in the apartment house already and are asked to invite April through lunch. In the beginning, they don't have much in common. April looks different with her hair piled on top of her head and false eyelashes, but as they go to school that fall, they realize they both relate of their love of Egypt. They come across a vacant and enclosed lot behind the A-Z Antiques and Curio Shop and the Egypt game begins. In the beginning of the game, it was only April, Marshall, and Melanie, but the game grows over time. They keep it a secret from adults and it becomes they own safe place, imaginary world. It was interesting to see how the characters connected to one another and how their imagined world came to life. Although dated, I felt many students/readers could relate to this story and use their own imagination to picture the Egypt game as it took place.
—Alisha Painter
I already had a sort of Egypt fixation when this book was read to me for the first time in 3rd grade. But this book took that fixation to a whole new level. For years, I read it over and over again. It...affected me. Because it implied that I wasn't the only dorky, bespectacled youth out there pouring over books about the mummification process (they pulled the brain out through the nose? awesome!), requesting that their mother construct 3D pyramind birthday cakes, and naming the neighbor's stray cat after her favorite female Pharoah (Hatshepsut). Strangely enough, though, not many 10 year olds had any interest in memorizing the hieroglyphic alphabet with me.
—Larissa
