Don't Know Much about Mummies

Children's Literature

Don't know much about mummies? Then this book will help you unwrap a lot of the mystery surrounding "these fascinating real people and how they became mummies." From the "Don't Know Much About" series, this book is informative, straightforward and amazingly thorough in its discussion of mummies. Written in an engaging question-and-answer format, readers will find out what the well-dressed mummy wears, what mummies have in common with raisins, what you can learn from a mummy's tummy, and so much more. Although the author focuses on Egyptian mummies (after all, the ancient Egyptians created the finest and best known mummies), equally interesting information is included on mummies from China and South America, as well as bog and ice mummies. Periodic sidebars give a bit of additional information on pertinent topics. This book is illustrated with colorful and sometimes silly drawings. A short timeline is included on the last page. A fun resource for an ancient history curriculum. 2005, HarperCollins, and Ages 8 to 11.
—Anita Barnes Lowen

School Library Journal

Gr 2-5-Breezy and informative, with color illustrations that often employ humor to convey the more seriously stated content of the text, this book ranges from the deep religious beliefs that often accompanied mummies' creation to the more practical fact that a decaying body smells. After a brief explanation of what mummies are, Davis zeroes in on the world's most famous mummies, those of Egypt. In addition to providing a significant amount of material on their preparation and burial, the author also discusses hieroglyphs, sarcophagi, funeral processions, pyramids, animal mummies, and even the alleged curse on King Tutankhamen's tomb. He includes natural mummification by arctic ice and desert dryness, the Incan and pre-Incan mummies of South America, those of China and the bogs of northwestern Europe, and the "ice man" discovered in the 1990s. He concludes with a look at what scientists can learn about daily life in the past from examining preserved bodies, a brief discussion of the modern practice of cryogenic suspension, and an annotated list of American museums with mummy collections. Harriet Griffey's Secrets of the Mummies (DK, 1998) covers much of the same material with less detail but in a more attractive format, with photographs instead of illustrations. Because Davis's book features neither a contents page nor an index, it is more suitable for browsing and pleasure reading than for research.-Coop Renner, Hillside Elementary, El Paso, TX Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

New York Times Book Review

“ … an engaging mini-encyclopedia of mummification, sure to round out any 9-year-old Egyptophile’s collection.”

People

“Reading [Davis] is like returning to the classroom of the best teacher you ever had.”