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The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead --by Heather Pringle	Click for more info
Mummies fascinate us. As we peer at their withered flesh, we are glimpsing a type of immortality. Heather Pringle tells the stories of some of these "frail elders" -- and the scientists who study them -- in The Mummy Congress. Pringle details the tension between the preservationists, who want to protect the ancient dead and refuse to unwrap them, and the dissectionists, who see mummies as a repository of scientific data waiting to be studied. She also introduces the reader to the preserved dead from around the world -- from the bog bodies of northern Europe to the mysterious Caucasian-looking mummies from China\'s Tarim Basin, from Egyptians in linen shrouds to incorruptible Christian saints, and from Lenin in his Moscow mausoleum to Incan children found on Andean mountaintops. Peppered with fascinating snippets of information -- for example, for centuries artists were sold on a pigment called "mummy," a transparent brown made from ground-up mummies. The Mummy Congress makes for lively, if somewhat ghoulish reading. --Sunny Delaney, ©Amazon.com

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Bloody Moments --by Gael Jennings, illustrated by Roland Harvey	Click for more info
Mabel is on a battlefield in the middle of blood and guts. It is 1536 in France and the Siege of Turin rages around her. But how did she get here? It all starts when Mabel is home sick. Nothing good is on TV and it\'s raining outside. She is bored, bored, bored, and grumpy. Then a slimy envelope with "The Guts of Human Life" written on it plops through the letter slot. The package contains a mysterious red CD-ROM. When she inserts it into the computer, Mabel is suddenly drawn into the past and through all sorts of hilarious, amazing, disgusting and TRUE adventures in the history of medicine. Follow Mabel as you discover; Al, who was shot in the guts and left with a small hole in his stomach -- so the world watched his food digest; the parents who stuffed smallpox scabs up their kids\' noses to make them immune to the disease; the doctor whose snot helped heal millions; Iggy, who was laughed out of town for suggesting hand washing in hospitals; the Italian doctor who was dissecting a supposedly dead Spanish nobleman to chart the human anatomy when suddenly the dead man moved; the woman who was refused admission to 29 medical schools in the 19th Century because she was a girl. This is no dry regurgitation of historical fact, but a bold marriage of text and art, funny to the bone and providing a sizable dose of medical highlights from across the spectrum of time. An index is included so you can easily find your favorite ailment. Ages 9-12 (and adults!). --©Firefly Books

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Written in Bones: How Human Remains Unlock the Secrets of the Dead --by Firefly Books Ltd	Click for more info
Written in Bones brings together a team of international experts to show how the careful study of bones reveals a compelling picture of the lives, cultures, and beliefs of ancient societies from around the world. This compelling and scientifically-accessible book: - Provides 38 case studies examining the discoveries at archeological sites - Introduces readers to ancient peoples - Includes more than 350 color photographs Human remains tell us much about how our ancestors lived and died. In Written in Bones, significant discoveries are carefully brought together and analyzed. Readers learn how experts use modern scientific techniques to piece together the stories behind the bones. The data is used to create a picture of cultures and ritual beliefs. There are such astonishing discoveries as: - Han Dynasty aristocrat preserved in an unknown red liquid - Bog bodies in Europe - The riddle of Tomb KV55 - where a male body was found inside a female coffin - World\'s oldest dwarf - The headless men and giant wolves of the Mesolithic cemetery in Siberia.

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