A blast-from-my-past! A book I really enjoyed as a child. I love all of Zilpha Keatley Snyder's books actually. A group of children begin playing an imaginative game about ancient Egypt. They're so involved in the game and its accompanying secrets, things get a bit of hand and they find themselves in real trouble.

I loved this book as a kid. I recently learned there's a sequel, so I decided to re-read the Egypt Game before I read the sequel. I was worried that it wouldn't hold up to my childhood memories. I was especially concerned that the way the kids treat different cultures might come across as flat or awkward or, frankly, xenophobic or bigoted. I'm a lot more sensitive about that stuff these days. I won't champion this book as a bastion of cultural diversity, but I think it was okay / good enough in that regard. And the group of kids themselves are pretty diverse, right?

Anyway, things I love about this book:

1. the way it gives space for kids to be kids and figure out how you are growing up. i remember these feelings so strongly, being small and wondering about how you can learn to be big.
2. the power of imagination play.
3. how important rituals and mystery are, even/especially the ones you make up yourself.
4. egyptology, man.
5. the power of secret places!
6. the references to peace, freedom, equality and justice. kids need to hear that shit like it is everyday-worth-talking-about and it gives this book such a good 1960s California feel.
7. the kid friendships in this book are so good.
8. the kid-adult relationships in this book are also good!

I'm so glad I re-read it. I think the magic survived the test of time.

Let's get something straight. If you're going to publish a book for the public, in order for it to get a good rating, the reader needs to be grabbed with suspense or there needs to be some commotion in the story. Well, this book was the complete opposite. The first chapter was a little suspenseful, but after that it was just plain, ordinary, life. I wish I didn't waste all of my story time with this book. There are millions of better books out there, and I don't recommend this one to anybody.

***Wanda’s Summer Carnival of Children’s Literature***

This book is one of the reasons that I love mysteries so much as an adult! I read it when I was 9 or 10 and I distinctly remember that it scared the pants off me!

It had just the right amount of creepiness for that age—a potentially sinister man whose storage yard that the children choose to play in, a secret club that they have to protect from children who wouldn’t appreciate the intricate Egypt game, and a murderer roaming the town and making adults reluctant to turn their kids loose to play.

Although I was raised in a Christian church, I had a very pagan soul as a little kid and I would have given my eye teeth to have friends who would have acted out Ancient Egyptian rituals with me! Plus, I had a vivid imagination and managed to get myself freaked out while playing other imaginary games with a neighbour girl. As an older child with no siblings to plot & plan with, I lived in my own head a lot and the research & planning of this role-playing would have been heaven for a little nerd like me.

The murders in this story barely made an impression on 10 year old me—I don’t remember that aspect at all. What terrified me was when the Egyptian oracle started to answer the children’s questions. That made my hair stand on end for several days, even after I knew how the book ended. I treasured the feeling that incredible things were possible.

Highly recommended.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder is a master of mood, as anyone who's read the evocative and sharp The Witches of Worm can tell you. The Egypt Game has mood going for it in spades; it's just not clear to me what else it has, I'm afraid. This book is a very slow burn, building on its mood gradually to... a not-particularly exciting climax, involving a barely mentioned antagonist with an identity we can't possibly anticipate as readers. It doesn't help that the resolution to a particular mystery is effectively given away in the first few chapters and on the book's cover. It's also guilty of my constant complaint, TME - too much epilogue. So why 3 out of 5? Because the characters are beautifully sketched, even those who don't get much screen time, and the story is so believable. The Egypt Game, itself, is so true to life, and so true to kids, and that's true of the book in general - I recognize these kids, they're believable and real, and the book does such a wonderful job of capturing the excitement of being a child and getting away with something. And it captures the main characters pain at being a discarded child with both sting and grace. It's worth reading for no other reason than for April and her friends and their bond together.

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.

Very good! I love the suspense and mystery the author gave me. I kept wanting to read more and more. It sure was a page-turner. It intrigued me to read more of her books. I would have never thought that "orange haired, speckled, old man" was the murderer and behind all the crime scenes. I'm happy Egypt isn't gone forever. Overall, it is defiantly be one of my favorite books so far.

I don't find the murdering of children a fitting, central topic for children's books. On top of that, it's a sad testament to the state of our current culture that the murderer can't even be recognized as a "bad guy." He is labeled as "mentally sick" and is conveyed as more in need of our sympathy than judgement. As if he was the victim and not the two children he murdered or the third he tries to nab.

The main character, a girl of ten, has no moral compass and leads her friends into all kinds of things. Including pretending they live in ancient Egypt. They play-act sacrificial blood rituals, worship of the gods, and prophesy and receive omens.

And of course, since the book is already dealing with fairly adult issues, why not throw in a dead-beat, Hollywood aspiring mom who dumps her daughter at the grandmother's so she can continue unhindered in her pursuits. Let's expose kids to the emotional trauma of that too, why not!

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April goes to live with Grandma, her mum has met someone new and is going away for a bit. April finds is it hard being deserted by her mum but gradually with the help of Caroline her Grandmother and making a new friend of Elizabeth who lives in an apartment in her block she begins to enjoy life and not constantly long go go back to Hollywood.

They start a game based on ancient Egypt and soon some others join in. Something bad happens in the neighbourhood and there isn't as much freedom for outdoor play as there was.

There are some wonderful characters in this story, April who likes to show off her glamorous Hollywood background and wear false eyelashes is also intelligent, thoughtful, brave and compassionate. How nice to see some boys who are the class's cool jokers join in and find they really like the imaginative play. A wonderful look at children playing outdoors, imaginative play and play that requires a bit of freedom and some risk.

A happy and climactic ending. If I had read this when I was young I would have been recruiting members for an Egypt group ASAP!

Read on openlibrary

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.

I loved this book so much back in like fourth grade. Highly recommended for middle-grade readers.

One of my all time favorite books. I must have read it over 20 times and still have my well-worn copy. I was fascinated with Ancient Egypt as a child (the first job I ever dreamed about having was an Egyptologist) and I dreamed of having a group of friends with which to play an imagination game like this with, but none of my friends had as much of an interest in Egypt as I had. I ended up decorating my room with Egyptian knick knacks that I'd find at random stores and get as gifts instead.