Gr. 3-6. Bound in gold and embellished with ruby-red "jewels," this follow-up to Dr. Ernest Drake's Dragonology (2003)--which, like Dragonology, credits a fictional character as its author, leaving those responsible for its written content unacknowledged--purports to be the scrapbook of an amateur archaeologist gone missing during the height of 1920s Egyptomania. As in Dragonology, pull-out documents, sundry flaps, and other novelty elements (including a "sample of mummy cloth" and a game of Egyptian checkers) will have children breathlessly anticipating each page turn. Even so, this seems to lack the cohesive artistic purpose that distinguished its predecessor. The images often appear overly slick, compromising the notion that they have been sketched on the fly by members of the expedition, and a fantastical frame story about the "lost tomb of Osiris" undermines the informational content, despite an awkward concluding attempt to separate fact from fiction. Dragonology's broad crossover success probably won't be reincarnated here, but the allure of the subject matter and the luxe packaging is likely to be considerable. Jennifer Mattson
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