The Egypt Game

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The Egypt Game (1967) is a Newbery Honor -winning novel by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. The story, set in California, follows the life of a lonely 11-year-old named April Hall (the daughter of an actress sent to live with her grandmother) and 11-year-old Melanie Ross, her new neighbor. Both share an interest in Ancient Egypt, and decide to create an elaborate "Egypt Game". Their bright imaginations inspire the game- but strange, dangerous things happen in their neighborhood, including the murder of a girl. April and Melanie also appear in Zilpha Keatley Snyder's sequel, The Gypsy Game.

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[edit] Major Characters (with names they use in "Egypt")

  • April Hall (refers to herself as April Dawn) = Bastet
  • Marshall Ross = Marshamosis
  • Security, Marshall's stuffed octopus
  • Toby Alvillar = Ramose
  • Melanie Ross = Aïda
  • Elizabeth Chung = Nefertiti (Neferbeth)
  • Ken Kamata = Horemheb
  • Professor

[edit] Detailed Summary

April Hall, a prepubescent girl, has moved into her grandmother’s apartment building from Hollywood. She longs to be as glamorous as her actress mother, Dorothea, however her mother usually neglects her. April meets her grandmother’s friends’ children- Melanie and Marshall. Melanie is about April’s age while Marshall is younger than Melanie and April.

Over the next few weeks, April and Melanie meet in the library and play with paper dolls. They get along together well due to their great imaginations. They find a book about Egypt and they become engrossed in ancient Egypt- which causes them to read every single book about Egypt in the library.

One day, on the way home, Melanie notices a loose plank in the fence nearby her house. Without any regard for trespassing consequences, April, Melanie, and Marshall enter through the fence to find several Egyptian relics, including a large sculpture of Nefertiti, a famous Egyptian queen. April believes it is an omen and after a couple of days, they return to the place. They clean up the place and decorate it with objects that remind them of Egypt.

After the renovation, they begin to build their own story of Ancient Egypt where Marshall is a boy pharaoh and Melanie & April are high priestesses of Set who offer Marshall, the young pharaoh, as a human sacrifice on the crocodile altar.

A new and similarly aged girl, Elizabeth, moves into the neighborhood. The children invite her to participate in the Egypt game to play Neferbeth.

However, the Egypt game comes to an abrupt halt when the murder of a little girl on an alley occurs. The whole town flies into shock and paranoia and as a result, none of the children are allowed outside for any games. The owner of the deserted yard where the Egypt game occurred is the main suspect.

This probation lasts until Halloween until some people volunteer to take the children from the neighborhood for trick-or-treating. The four children decide to sneak off to visit the Egypt Game while the others trick-or-treat. In the deserted yard, the children celebrate until they are interrupted by their two classmates, Toby and Ken. These two people eventually join the Egypt Game as well.

One day, at school, the teacher talks about oracles and Toby decides to have an oracle ceremony at the Egypt Game where they ask questions and receive answers from a mysterious source. Ken is the first to ask a question, “Will I be a Big League star?” He places the piece of paper in the altar and when the children return the next day, there is an answer in unfamiliar writing, “Man is his own star, and that soul who can be honest, is the only perfect man.” The children are confused- but eventually Toby confesses that he wrote the answers. However, one day, a question is answered by someone who was not Toby.

One night, April remembers that she left her math notebook in the deserted yard. She runs to the place, gets her book, and tries to leave when suddenly, somebody grabs her from behind. Help eventually comes in the form of Marshall and her assaulter runs away. Marshall identifies the assaulter when they look at a criminal line up in the police station. It turns out this person was the murderer.

The fence is boarded up and the Egypt Game ceases to exist. However, on Christmas day, the owner of the yard comes over and gives each of the children a key for the new door to the fence. He confesses to being the mysterious person who answered a question in the oracle ceremony and he confesses to watching them play the Egypt Game because it gave him joy.

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