Goosebumps 5 – The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb

R. L. Stine's The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is a spooky Goosebumps adventure for 8 year olds that takes a boy deep inside the Great Pyramid.

What happens

Gabe is twelve and spending Christmas in Egypt with his mum and dad. The pyramid is enormous. Gabe is mostly just thirsty (very, very thirsty).

Then his parents get called away to Alexandria on business. Gabe chooses to stay behind with Uncle Ben, a famous archaeologist who loves a practical joke. The catch? His cousin Sari is staying too.

Sari is two months older than Gabe and has to be first and best at everything. When she wants her own way she calls him chicken until he gives in. You can probably guess how that goes.

Uncle Ben's team has found a tunnel inside the pyramid that isn't on any of the charts. It might even lead to the pharaoh's own burial chamber. And a quiet man from the university keeps warning that they've woken an ancient curse.

What makes it such fun is Gabe himself. He tells the story, so you get every joke he cracks and every time he pretends he isn't scared. He carries a little mummy hand everywhere as a lucky charm, bought at a garage sale for two dollars. Who wouldn't want one of those?

The early chapters play the same trick again and again. Something lurches out of the dark, Gabe screams, and it turns out to be someone he knows having a laugh at his expense. It's a great way to be scared, because the giggle comes straight after the shiver.

It's worth knowing that it isn't all jokes, though. Gabe's parents leave him on his own in a big Cairo hotel for an hour, and he lets himself imagine them dying in a car crash. Two of the workers are taken to hospital with a mystery illness. And right at the end of the first chapter, Gabe tells you he'll end up trapped deep inside the pyramid.

A child who hates dark, tight spaces might find the tunnels a lot. If your reader likes a creepy adventure with plenty of laughs along the way, they'll be hooked.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, Let's Get Invisible has another twelve-year-old poking about somewhere he probably shouldn't. Max finds a hidden room in his attic on his birthday, and the only thing inside is a tall old mirror.