Clive Dickinson’s The Lost Diary of Tutankhamun’s Mummy is a very silly cruise down the Nile for 8 year olds, told by the boy king’s own mum.<\/p>\n
Nefertidy is the Pharaoh’s mother. Her son Tutankhamun (Tutti to her) is nine years old, and he’s just surprised her with a present. A cruise all the way down the river to see the pyramids. A long one. As long as possible, ideally.<\/p>\n
She did overhear him whispering about getting her “out of the way” for good. She’s decided that means he’s planning something extra special. Your reader will work out what’s really going on long before she does!<\/p>\n
So off she sails on the royal barge with her diary, plus a pile of postcards to “Tutti Sweetie” that never quite get posted.<\/p>\n
The joke is that Nefertidy gets nearly everything a little bit wrong, and she’s always the last to notice. She calls a hippo an elephant. She threatens a farmer with her guards for being rude, when he’s only telling her the name of the bucket-and-pole gadget he waters his fields with. She gets hopelessly lost in the back streets of Memphis and knocks over a potter’s pots.<\/p>\n
And tucked inside all that muddle is a proper tour of Ancient Egypt. Why everyone wants the Nile to flood. How bread gets from the field to the table. Hieroglyphs you can read left to right, right to left or straight down. The Valley of the Kings, the pyramids at Giza and a rather knocked-about Sphinx. There’s even a chirpy brochure from a mummy-making firm explaining the whole process (squidgy bits and all).<\/p>\n
Half the fun is in the names. The doctor on the riverbank is called Sawboneandchopit. Her old friend’s rich husband is Munnyinthebank. How many can your reader spot?<\/p>\n
One thing to know before you hand it over. Nefertidy is fond of wine. She topples into a grape-treading trough, and a few days of her holiday go missing in a haze. It’s all played for laughs, but it might prompt a question or two. A schoolteacher also canes children who get their writing wrong, which she thinks is a bit much.<\/p>\n
If your reader loves a fact but groans at anything that looks like homework, this is a sneaky way in. It’s history told by someone who hasn’t been paying attention.<\/p>\n
If they’d like another diary from a narrator who makes a mess of an Egyptian trip, try Dorkius Maximus in Egypt. Dorkius is a Roman boy sent by Julius Caesar to make friends with the young pharaoh Ptolemy, and he’s tricked his mum’s sacred chickens before he’s even packed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Clive Dickinson’s The Lost Diary of Tutankhamun’s Mummy is a very silly cruise down the Nile for 8 year olds, told by the boy king’s own mum. Nefertidy is the Pharaoh’s mother. Her son Tutankhamun (Tutti to her) is nine years old, and he’s just surprised her with a present. A cruise all the way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12357,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7204,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Dorkius Maximus in Egypt","lr_seo_hook":"Tutankhamun's scatterbrained mum cruises the Nile and gets Egypt all wrong."},"book_tag":[23],"age_group":[26],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[206],"class_list":["post-7977","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-funny-books","age_group-books-for-8-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-clive-dickinson"],"yoast_title":"Lost Diaries – The Lost Diary of Tutankhamun’s Mummy by Clive Dickinson | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Tutankhamun's scatterbrained mum cruises the Nile and gets Egypt all wrong. For ages 8+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n