The
By Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Review by Alex
Would you like
to be sent away by your mother? This is exactly what April faces when her
mother sends her to live with her grandmother. Even though she acts pompous and
haughty when she arrives, April soon becomes fast friends with a girl named
Melanie Ross. As they soon discover, they both love playing imagination games
and anything to do with
April and her friends Melanie, Marshall, Elizabeth, Toby and Ken, the main characters of Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s award winning book The Egypt Game, invent their own Egypt. One that is hidden in a forgotten junkyard behind an old antiques shop called A-Z Antiques and Curios. They build shrines to the gods and have ceremonies to honor them. They even invent their own form of hieroglyphics and make their own robes. They generally enjoy themselves.
They all meet after school everyday to play, and soon they have various ceremonies and rituals that they perform. They all feel that this is the best game they have ever played. Of course, that’s before strange things start happening to the players. Did they go too far, or is it just a coincidence?
This is such a great book with so many
great parts that I’m not sure I even have a favorite part. Of course, one part
that was really great in my opinion is when it says, “Following Elizabeth’s
gaze, Melanie was horrified to see a huge misshapen figure teetering on top of
the high board fence. The figure teetered wildly in the dim light, and then
sprang forward to land in a horrible threatening crouch, right in the middle of
I think anyone that likes to read fantasy books will love this book. Even though it’s not really fantasy, I loved it, and I normally only read fantasy. I believe that it’s definitely worth reading The Egypt Game. It won the Newberry Honor Award, and it deserves that award.