Kids Blog

Kane Chronicles: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

When Sadie and Carter’s dad attempts to set free Egyptian gods by shattering the Rosetta stone, and it goes terribly wrong, they must run for their lives and risk every thing they own to save him. 5 stars.

Review by Nina of Karori

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

This book is great and it is filled with heroic adventure. If you need a book to read then choose this one. 4 stars.

Review by Corah of Karori

If you are a fan of Terry Deary and the Horrible History series then you might like to take a look at this new book  Egypt A High-Speed History. This is a really cool book set out in comic-strip form with ten stories full of dreadful deeds, foul pharaohs and plenty of mummies. But be prepared – you go through these stories at hair-raising speed! You will have to move fast to see them all.

Rick Riordan author of the amazing Percy Jackson series is now writing about Ancient Egyptian mythology.

The first of The Kane Chronicles is The Red Pyramid. In which Carter and Sadie Kane discover who their parents really were,  get slightly possessed by Isis and Horus (two Egyptian Gods) and have to save the world from being turned into burning chaos. Along the way they get to travel to London, Paris and New York, perform magic, indulge in some kick butt fight scenes, and hang out with a groovy knife wielding cat goddess. What is there not to love about a book like that?

Hey, did you know that not all mummies are found in Egypt? Not all mummies are wrapped in cloth and some mummies have been on display for centuries. Some mummies have been frozen for centuries and some people have become mummies by complete accident and some mummies are only as old as you. Check out Mysteries of the Mummy Kids and unwrap their secrets.

The ancient Egyptians wrote in hieroglyphs, a form of picture-writing with 700 different symbols. Hieroglyphs were written by professional writers called scribes. They were deliberately difficult to write so that scribes could keep a special position in society. Hieroglyphs could be written from left to right, right to left, or top to bottom. They were written on state monuments, temples, and tombs.

For contracts, letters and stories, scribes wrote in script writing called hieratic. That was always written from left to right. Later an even faster script was developed called demotic.

Hieroglyphs were written on a type of paper called papyrus. It was made from cutting out the centre of the papyrus plant stem, and then cutting that into strips. The strips were then layered on top of each other, and covered with linen fabric to make paper.

In the year 6 AD the skill of reading hieroglyphs was lost until a stone was found at Rosetta in Egypt in 1799. On the stone was the same piece of writing in three different languages: Greek, demotic, and hieroglyphs. People were then able to work out what the hieroglyphic writing said.

Check out this book for more.

The Egyptians believed in an afterlife. When someone died they believed that the person’s “Ka”, or double, lived on. Therefore, the Egyptians would preserve a person’s body, so that the “Ka” could bring the body back to life in the afterlife.

The bodies of the dead would be embalmed. The internal organs, such as the intestines, stomach, liver and lungs, were removed and placed in jars called canopic jars. The heart was left in the body to be weighed in the afterlife. The body would then be dried out with natron crystals. Once it was dry, the body was wrapped in linen bandages.

Then the body could be placed in its coffin. If someone was wealthy, they could have several, highly decorated layers to their coffin. Pharaohs were placed in tombs with their canopic jars, weapons, clothes, furniture and jewellery.

For more on Egyptians check out this book.

The Egyptians worshipped hundreds of gods and goddesses. Many of the gods were represented by animals.

The main Egyptian god was Amun-Re, the sun-god. He was king of the gods and protector of the pharaoh. The Egyptians believed the sun god was responsible for all creation: people, animals, the fertility of the soil, the pharaoh’s journey to the underworld.

Thoth was the moon-god, and he was represented by a bird because the curved beak looked like a crescent moon. He gave the Egyptians knowledge of writing, medicine, and mathematics. He was the patron of the scribes.

Osiris was god of the underworld and the afterlife.

Anubis had the head of a jackal and guarded the land of the dead. He was also the god of embalming.

Bastet was the daughter of the sun-god Amun-Re. She is known as the cat goddess because she is represented by cats. She represented the power of the sun to ripen crops.

The Egyptian pharaoh was said to embody the god Horus. Horus had a hawk’s head. The name Horus means “he who is far above.”

Check out this book for more.

The first pyramid in Egypt was built as the burial place of King Djoser in 2630 B.C. It is called the Step Pyramid because it rises in steps. It was designed as a giant stairway for Djoser to climb to the sun-god in the sky.

 
King Sneferu developed the Great Pyramid with sloping sides. It was meant to represent the mound that emerged out of the water at the beginning of time. The sun-god was said to have stood on this mound and created the other gods and goddesses.

 
The largest Pyramid is the Great Pyramid at Giza, which was built for King Khufu in 2528 B.C. It is made up of 2.3 million limestones. It is taller than The Statue of Liberty in New York.

 
The pharaohs stopped building pyramids in 2150 B.C. Instead they were buried in tombs in the cliffs of the Valley of the Kings. The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered almost completely untouched by robbers in 1922. Inside were weapons, clothes, jewellery, musical instruments, model boats and the king’s famous gold coffins and his mask.

 
Check out this book for more details.

The ancient Egyptians were led by a king, and occasionally, a queen. The king was known as the pharaoh. The pharaoh was more than the ruler of Egypt; the pharaoh was worshipped by the Egyptians as a god. The pharaoh wore a royal headcloth called the “nemes” with a crown of cobras on top. They represented the cobra goddess Wadjet. Only kings and queens could wear the cobra goddess, who was said to protect the pharaoh by spitting flames.

Famous pharaohs include:
Ramesses The Great: He ruled Egypt in 13 B.C. for over 67 years. He built most of the monuments and statues that can be seen in Egypt today.
Tutankhamun: He became king of Egypt when he was only 9 years old. He is famous because of the golden treasures found in his tomb.
Pepy II: He became king of Egypt when he was only 6 years old. He ruled Egypt for 94 years.
Hatshepsut: She was queen of Egypt for 20 years. She wore the pharaoh’s crown.
Akhenaten & Nefertiti: King and Queen of Egypt. They banned the traditional Egyptian gods, and only worshipped the sun god Aten.
Cleopatra: Queen of Egypt and Egypt’s last ruler before it was conquered by the Roman Empire.

For more info on Egyptians check out this book.