Working Mummies

by Joan Horton, Drazen Kozjan (Illustrator)

Overview

Get ready for giggles and ghouls in this celebration of hard-working mommies who also happen to be mummies. Here you'll find a doctor mum curing raspy spooks with coffin syrup and a fang-filling dentist completely wrapped up in her dangerous work. You'll also meet a librarian mummy who has her hands full with book worms, a writer mum conjuring spells for readers, and many others. With visual and verbal puns galore, this scream of a book helps illuminate the mysterious world where so many mommies disappear every day—and may also explain why some of them come home slightly unravelled.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466815506
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	07/17/2012
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	64 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

JOAN HORTON's Math Attack! was praised as "ingenious" by Family Fun magazine. She lives in Glastonbury, Connecticut.

DRAZEN KOZJAN has illustrated several books, including Diary of A Fairy Godmother by Esme Raji Codell, Julia Gillian (and the Art of Knowing) by Alison McGhee, and Robert Kinerk's Oh, How Sylvester Can Pester! He lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Editorial Reviews

Horton keeps up the momentum behind the pun in her title with smooth, four-line verses in this vividly illustrated guide to “mummy” professions. A mummy doctor “checks the throats/ Of spooks with raspy moans,/ Then doses them with coffin syrup/ To soothe their frightful groans.” A six-armed mummy realtor doesn’t shy from selling haunted houses, and mummy caterers deliver plates of eyeballs and worms to a gathering of “drooling beasts.” Kozjan delivers a menagerie of monsters and cadaverous creatures, rendered in fluorescent fuchsia, orange, and green, with originality and scares on every page. Ages 3–up. Illustrator’s agent: Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Sure to be a hit…” —Kirkus

“Kids will eat this one up.” —School Library Journal

“...originality and scares on every page...” —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

PreS-Gr 1—This highly entertaining picture book introduces mummy mommies and a variety of monster creatures they encounter at their jobs. Their careers include manicurist, doctor, caterer, realtor, librarian, and beautician. Rhyming couplets scan perfectly and use clever wordplay to get their message across: the doctor prescribes "coffin syrup," the waitress serves up "Scream of Wheat," while "some mummies work the graveyard shift," for example. The tale begins with the manicurist mummy turning off the alarm clock in her sarcophagus and heading off to work, and ends with her returning home to give a hug to her boy and "ghoul." The colorful and expressive illustrations are filled with Frankenstein and his cousins, werewolves, bats, vampires, and a host of ghosts, much more humorous than scary. Kids will eat this one up.—Maryann H. Owen, Racine Public Library, WI

School Library Journal

In this ode to hardworking mummy mothers, an impressive collection of careers is introduced with deliciously icky details sure to elicit appreciative "eww's." With a palette dominated by saturated purples, greens, oranges and reds, a detailed, fantastical monster city comes to life. Alongside dragons, ghosts and one-eyed monsters, female mummies contribute their various talents to serve their bustling community. Readers meet a diverse cast, including a brave manicurist who specializes in sharpening claws, a doctor who prescribes "coffin syrup" to cure raspy moans, a waitress who serves frightening bowls of "Scream of Wheat," a realtor who sells haunted dwellings and a dentist who expertly files vampires' fangs. Each mummy expertly tackles the challenges of her profession whether it be working the graveyard shift or taming a classroom of rambunctious goblins. But in the end, "no matter where the mummies work-- / In diners, stores, or schools-- / They can't unwind until they're home… // To hug their boys and ghouls." Kozjan obviously had fun creating the full-bleed spreads that successfully extend the humor in Horton's well-paced, rhyming text. Readers will not mind the message delivered amid the amusing wordplay and clever, elaborate illustrations. Sure to be a hit at Halloween, Mother's Day, during a discussion about puns and when the popular question arises, "So what do you want to be when you grow up?" (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews