Creepy and True, Mummies Exposed!, superb, non-fiction, mummy funny

Mummies are something that we’ve had a keen interest in for decades. When I was single and childless I would plan my vacations around places where mummies could be seen. On one particular excursion I was near Siwa, Egypt and visited a series of tombs that the locals were talking about.* Sure enough, there were mummies there, just chilling out in a series of enclaves that were cut into the side of a mountain. I never disturbed any of the remains-or took anything from the burial site. I’ve seen The Brady Bunch Hawaii episode, I know that taking things from sacred locations never, ever ends well.

I mention all of this to ironically state that, as a child, I never had an interest in history or mummies. It’s possible that one could Credit Indiana Jones for creating an entire generation of mummy hobbyists and erstwhile archeologists. Creepy and True, Mummies Exposed! is the sort of non-fiction book that middle school readers and older, with these interests will literally dig.

Creepy and True Mummies Exposed! is not the kind of book that every ready will enjoy. The book’s vocabulary, reading level and tone is clearly aimed at the middle school audience. What audiences will enjoy about the book is that it also has the mummy content, complete with dozens of color pictures that lay our entombed friends out for all of their glory. Obviously, not every ready will want to see photos of real-life mummies. It’ll break down into three camps, with the main two being those who show off the mummies in a gross, look-at-this manner and those that want nothing to do with them. The third camp are those medical or STEM kids that are genuinely curious about what these human time capsules have to say to us now.

 It turns out that these mummies have quite a lot to tell us. Those mummies that were discovered in the early 2000s have much more to reveal because of the technology that’s advanced in that short period. The book details mummies that were discovered in communist China, central Asia, European bogs, Italian mountains, Peruvian deserts and those that were disguised as a statue. The book is a fascinating look at mummies and the worlds that they were created in and just a little bit about how they lived.

Author Kerrie Logan Hollihan nails the tone of the book. From the faux-sensationalist of Mummies Exposed!, it’s obvious that book aims to be that cool teacher. It’s loose and playful, without being disrespectful or gross. The book is also very conversational, asks questions and encourages those who are reading it to ask questions. If the book had a narrator it would be slightly more serious Mr. Frizzle.

The end of each chapter has a page or two of Factlets. These pages are even more conversational and take a deep dive into something that was referenced in the preceding pages. In two of these Factlets we learn about an Asian tree that was key in allowing monks to dry them out and a modern-day mummy that was created in 2012 by monks in southeast China.

Mummies Exposed! is STEM-tastic. It’s not a science book, per se, but it covers so many things in the acronym that those who tend to like that subject will really enjoy it. We’ve read lots of books on mummies and this is easily the best one we’ve read for the non-academic crowd. It’s educational without being boring. It’s entertaining, but doesn’t sequester itself exclusively to those who would stereotypically would like it. Think of this as a history or STEM based Trojan Horse for middle school readers who need their education laced with a little levity.