Terrible True Tales: Romans
Terrible True Tales: Egyptians
Terry Deary, illustrated by Helen Flook
Bloomsbury Education

Having watched his parents slain by the Romans, the boy narrator of the first tale The Captive Celt, is taken from Britannia to Rome as a slave, not to a Roman but to Celtic hero Caratacus.

There he learns vital fighting skills and three years later, his master frees him to return to his homeland.
With maternal death, human sacrifice, brutal corporal punishment, genocide, and child slavery this is pretty terrifying stuff but Terry Deary’s dark, wicked sense of humour shines through it all and children love it.
They will also enjoy the three other stories – The Fatal Fire, The Grim Ghost and The Goose Guards. The Fatal Fire gives a short account of the burning of Rome and of the Emperor Nero.
The Grim Ghost refers to the subject of a tale told to a young boy, Pertinax as he keeps the great Pliny company in the garden. The Goose Guards tells of a boy priest who is determined to get his revenge on fellow pupil Flavia for making him look stupid during a lesson with the head priest.
Each story has an afterword giving a factual historical summary, as well as a ‘You Try’ activity or two.

Egyptians too has four stories loosely based on real events. The Gold in the Grave is told from the viewpoint of Paneb a tavern owner’s son, renowned for his thieving skills. In the robbery he’s aided and abetted by Dalifa,

Both are tasked with getting the treasure out of Tutankhamen’s tomb after the funeral ceremony. You could say of some concerned with this thievery, greed comes before a fall.
The Plot on the Pyramid centres on the pyramid builders, with farmers being required to work for the Pharaoh building a pyramid during Akhet, the time of year when the river rises, flooding the surrounding fields. We read of the trials and tribulations of one farmer, Yenini, member of a gang working under the direction of the bullying Ahmes. With lots of gory details, many young readers will relish this.
In The Magic and the Mummy a father tells his young daughter Neria she’s to assist him in the House of Death where mummies are made. To her surprise she is asked to mummify the pharaoh’s cat so it can accompany him to the Afterlife. There’s a big problem however: this cat looks very like her own cat, Katkins so there’s no way she wants to kill and gut the creature. Is there any way she can save the cat and not get caught and punished for so doing?
The Phantom of the Nile sees Menses, a bit of a chatterbox, training to be a scribe in the local temple. In order to earn extra money to buy his father a much-needed new boat for fishing, he takes on another job, to help Maiarch get rid of the phantom that haunts her new house. When Menses visits the woman a second time he is accompanied by his friend Ahmose who quickly surmises that it’s no ghostly being that is alarming Maiarch. So who is it and what is the intruder’s purpose? Can Menses come up with a plan to expose him and even earn the money his family so badly needs? Greed and doing the right thing are at the heart of this story.

Irreverent and huge fun – the fun being added to by Helen Flook’s illustrations. Put both books in a primary classroom and children will be clamouring to read them.