The notion of a magical servant is neat, though given that Charles stuck "something" into the spell a couple times it's weird that it worked. The consequences...I had a hard time with this book - Tee is so _dumb_. Or I suppose, more accurately, childish - she doesn't think things through. The fact that she's a lot like me at that age (book-mad, school and making-friends averse...) only made it worse. She's extremely lucky that she finally woke up and told the right person (who actually knew an answer, or at least where to find it) _just_ before it was too late. Good ending...though I wonder if Tee is going to be able to keep up the shabti's behavior (social and scholarly) in school. Adventure is something bad happening, to someone else, or long ago, or far away...maybe she'll be less interested in adventure books having had her own. ( )

Tee Woodie's uncle leaves her an ushabti doll, created as a servant to ease the afterlife tasks of an Egyptian princess. Her little brother's research into hieroglyphic writings leads him to accidentally pronounce the spell to activate the ushabti. Tee is going through a rough patch at school and is only too happy to send the ushabti to do ALL her tasks while she reads escapist series fiction and eats snacks. What could possibly go wrong with this excellent scheme? ( )