Mummies

Lorraine Douglas is the youth services co-ordinator at the Winnipeg
Public Library.

Sylvia Funston has written a number of excellent children’s books
including The Secret Life of Animals (1998), Animal Feelings (1998), and
Scary Science (1996). In Mummies, she utilizes a combination of color
photographs, illustrations, and interesting text to create a
high-interest and fascinating look at human and animal mummies.
Easy-to-read sections explain how living things rot after death and how
creating a mummy stops this process. Several sections contain
activities, including experiments, a mummy-trekking board game, and
creating a mini-mummy. Children in Grades 4 and up will be fascinated by
the stories of the bog mummies, King Tut’s mummy, and snow mummies as
well as the one about Mallory, the mountain climber who was recently
found on Mt. Everest. Some of the photographs of the human mummies are
quite gory, making the book more suitable for older readers. At the end
of the book there is a timeline and a world map of mummy discoveries.

This excellent addition to the Strange Science series comes with a
small plastic skeleton in a bag. Highly recommended.