Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Adventures in Ancient Egypt
Illustrator: Bill Slavin
Fiction Series
For ages 8 to 10
Kids Can Press, 2000 ISBN: 978-1550745467
The Binkerton twins are bored stiff. It is the summer holidays and all their friends have gone somewhere interesting. Emma and Josh, however, are stuck at home with nothing to do. At least that is the way things are until the day that they go into the Good Times Travel Agency. It is a “creepy” place, one which they normally would never enter, but their little sister Libby runs inside the shop for some reason and the twins have no choice but to follow her
Inside the agency they meet Julian T. Pettigrew, an odd old man surrounded by odd things. Emma is sure that they should get out of the shop as soon as possible, but before she can stop him Josh has opened one of the books in the store. It is a book about ancient Egypt and the next thing the children know is that they are in ancient Egypt themselves, sitting in the Nile River!
Thankfully Julian Pettigrew’s book is full of information about ancient Egypt and what to expect there. Unfortunately, the children cannot leave their holiday in the past until they have read every word in the book.
The children meet the locals and they even end up being treated like one of the locals. Josh is taken away by some soldiers and the girls have no idea where he being taken to. Luckily for Josh, the pages of the Guidebook provide Emma with an enormous amount of pertinent information about the ancient Egyptians, their country, their lives, their beliefs, and their customs, and it is a great help as she tries to find her lost bother.
With amusing cartoon like illustrations, lots of diagrams, and wonderfully presented information about the lives and times of the ancient Egyptians, this book is a must for young ancient Egypt fans.
This is the first title in the “Good Times Travel Agency” series.
