By Aliki
A step-by-step picture book on how the ancient Egyptians made a mummy, and why they believed they had to, with the pictures copied from real tomb walls.
Aliki lays out mummification in order, the way the Egyptians actually did it. She starts with why they bothered at all: they believed a body had to be kept whole for the person to live on after death. Then she walks through the seventy days of embalming, the painted coffin, and the tomb packed with food, furniture, and everything the person might need on the other side. The pictures are copied from tomb walls and papyrus scrolls, so a child is looking at how the Egyptians drew themselves. Her flat, matter-of-fact tone is what makes the stranger details easy to take in.
For a unit on ancient Egypt, this is about the clearest, most complete walkthrough of mummification you'll find at this age. It doesn't stop at the gross parts, either. Every step is tied back to what the Egyptians believed, so a child comes away with the reason behind the process and not only the ick. And because Aliki draws in the flat, formal style of the tomb painters, children pick up how to read that kind of art while they read the book. It works read aloud, or handed to a child to study the diagrams alone.