The Return of the Mummy

Submitted by CDCastro on
Author
Dom Pelletier
Translator
Dina Ginzburg
Toronto, ON: Scholastic Canada, 2022
132 pp., trade pbk., $14.99
ISBN
9781443195843
Grades
Grades 2-5
Ages
Ages 7-10
Review by
Allison Giggey<i>The Return of the Mummy</i> is Book Five in Dom Pelletier’s “Lunch Club” series, and, if my complaint about the previous title, <i>Revenge of the Bigfoot</i> (www.cmreviews.ca/node/3085), was a little too much of the same ol’ story, then

The Return of the Mummy is Book Five in Dom Pelletier’s “Lunch Club” series, and, if my complaint about the previous title, Revenge of the Bigfoot, was a little too much of the same ol’ story, then this installment has me eating my words. So far in this series, we’ve seen aliens, mutants, werewolves, Bigfoot, and the Luna Lamp which allows for a full restart of a day. This time, readers are plunged into a world of time travel with the invention of evil McSticky’s space-time ray. The Return of the Mummy sends readers back and forth from present day to dinosaurs, and from ancient Egypt to the future as Tia and Leo work to find Mr. Peabody who has been lost somewhere in time.

In order to find Mr. Peabody, the pair have to bend the rules of time and space, burying a request to their future selves in a time capsule in order to get the tools they need to pull off their rescue. As a teacher, I love books that lend themselves well to an interesting class discussion or project— while I personally don’t love a graphic novel as a read-aloud, this one could definitely prompt some good discussions about the butterfly effect or how our current actions can affect the future.

As I’ve come to expect from the Lunch Club series, The Return of the Mummy is full of jokes, giggles, and hijinks. My own kids always love when I come home with a new title in this series, and the books never stay on the library shelves long.

Recommended
Reviewer

Allison Giggey is a teacher-librarian in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.