Well, my pc is dead and I graduate tomorrow, so I was trying to think of an appropriate book to review. Most of my life I never wanted to be where I was and the thought of just PRETENDING hard enough and being able to be somewhere else was sooo tempting. This book was great.

As an adult this was three stars, but I recall as a kid really liking it and it was my sister's favorite book for a while.
I felt that there were parts near the end involving the attempted murder that were poorly handled and that jarred with the rest of the story, but overall it was a lovely evocation of childhood imagination and how time, friends, and new interests can help heal emotional wounds. Plus Marshall and Security are awesome.

I found this book by looking around my house for books to read. One thing that impressed me was that the book had to do with looking into suspense. A quote that supports this, "Mrs. Ross suggested that April might like to look over Melanie's books to see if there was anything she'd like to borrow," (Snyder 28). This shows that when you want to read a book, you will want to read on because the author builds suspense to make you want to find out what happens next. This helps me because it will be an example to help me look in books that have suspense in a way to find out what will happen in the future.

This was a middle-ish grade novel I read to teach my students how to write a book recommendation! Here's the review I wrote as an example for my students:

Do you love reading about kid characters with wild imaginations? Do you have a wild imagination yourself? If you choose to read The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, you will LOVE these characters and the adventures they go through together.

The Egypt Game is an imaginary game that Melanie and April like to play. They are both avid readers who have high interests in all things Egyptian. They use their wild imaginations to create their own special world in a yard behind an old run-down antique shop. This enclosed space has been untouched for years, but comes to life when the girls start rearranging odds and ends to build their Egypt Game.

The beginning of this book will get you hooked immediately! The setting is so mysterious and will make you curious right off the bat when you are introduced to an old man peering through the antique shop windows to spy on the Egypt Game.

I loved meeting each character in the first few chapters. You will get to know some really quirky things about each one - fake eyelashes, a stuffed octopus, and oracles included - that makes them all the more lovable!