I Am the Mummy Heb-Nefert by Eve Bunting

Atop her flaxen wig 'a cone of scented fat / melted to liquid in the summer warmth / and smelled of flowers. She recalls the work of her handmaidens, who shaved her head and painted her with yellow dye.

In a picture book for older readers that is both lyrical and melancholy, a female mummy remembers the days when she danced for the pharaoh's brother and became his wife. Camper, Minneapolis Public Librar圜opyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc., Gr. The atmospheric watercolors pick up both the sunlight on Egyptian sands and the dark shadows of sealed tombs.'Cathryn A. Bunting uses a poetic, lyrical voice to transport readers beyond the withered mummified remains they see and into Heb-Nefert's ancient world. Finally, she looks down on her shriveled body where it lies in a museum and observes the daily stream of visitors that pass by, rarely thinking that a similar fate awaits them. Her loyal cat was mummified, too, so it could follow her into the afterlife. When she died, her body was anointed with oils and spices, and bandaged to begin the process of mummification.

She recalls visiting her humble childhood home where women baked bread outdoors and a snake was coiled in a basket to catch rats and mice. In her own time, Heb-Nefert was the wife of the pharaoh's brother, with servants who dressed her and a loving husband with whom she explored the royal gardens and hunted birds on the Nile. In this quiet, evocative voyage through time, an Egyptian mummy looks back on her life.

I Am the Mummy Heb-Nefert by Eve Bunting