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The Great Egyptian Grave Robbery (2009)

by Sara Pennypacker(Favorite Author)

3.78 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0061429937 (ISBN13: 9780061429934)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

HarperCollins

series

Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures

review 1: An Upbeat and Well Written Addition to the Flat Stanley ShelfThese are very cool books with an interesting history. The original Flat Stanley appeared in 1964 and five more books appeared between then and 2003. When the original author, Jeff Brown, passed away in 2003, the series was converted to the "...Worldwide Adventures" line. These new books, (there are at least ten), have been written by a variety of authors.This adventure was written by Sara Pennypacker, the well known author of the very engaging "Clementine" books. (Clementine is a cheerful, high-energy girl who always has the best intentions but whose efforts, (say, cutting the neighbor girl's hair), often end up in disaster.)In this episode Flat Stanley is mailed to Egypt to help explore a recently discovered to... moremb. He's the logical choice since he can fit between cracks in the stones. There are grave robbers, skullduggery and lurking.These books have more going for them than just the "flat" gimmick, although that is a pretty good hook. The overall vibe is one of gung-ho good-guy adventure. The deadpan acceptance by everyone of Stanley's flatness has a pretty subtle positive message. The good-guys versus bad-guys angle is always clear and crisply presented. There is a lot of dry humor and just a little bit of an arch kidding of the material in the narrative. For an early chapter book there is actually a surprisingly generous helping of interesting facts about Egypt, including tombs, hieroglyphics, the culture and geography, and so on.So, while at one level the books are sort of silly, they are written with flair and energy and touch a lot of early readers' favorite bases. Certainly this book would be a zippy and engaging addition to the library and a nice choice to try on an early reader.Please note that I found this book while browsing the local library's Kindle books, and downloaded it for free. I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.
review 2: Having read and loved Flat Stanley as a child, I was interested to read this new adventure.Flat Stanley suffered an unfortunate incident one night when a bulletin board fell on him and flattened him to half an inch think. Fortunately, this saves a him a lot on travel, since he can go through the post. Because of his fame, Flat Stanley has been invited to Egypt to help a mysterious man get into one of the great pyramids, as he's the only one that can fit. However, when he arrives, he discovers that he is actually helping grave robbers to steal from the pyramid and must find a way to stop them.This is a quick and humourous read with good moral issues raised along the way - doing the right thing, trusting your friends and being kind to your family. I would recommend it for KS1, confident readers can read alone and it would also be a good class story to read to run along a project on the Egyptians, bearing in mind that there's not a huge amount of factual information in the story, but it gives a good flavour. less

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