MUMMIES AND THEIR MYSTERIES

``You may have mixed feelings about seeing a mummy,'' writes the author of Trash! (1988) and A Skyscraper Story (1990); but ``remember that a mummy, though once really alive, is now really dead.'' Suggesting that mummies be viewed with respect rather than jokes or revulsion (though she's not above an occasional joke herself—one hideous specimen is labeled ``Miss Chile''), Wilcox uses examples from around the world to show what can be learned from them: why many Egyptian mummies have badly worn teeth; why so few Incan men were found at the burial site near Pisco; what killed members of the 1845 Franklin expedition in northern Canada; the wealth of cultural detail preserved with the bog people; a 5000- year-old hunter recently discovered in the Italian Alps. Wilcox describes the process of mummification, both accidental and deliberate (some Japanese Buddhist priests did it to themselves), and concludes with a look at modern mummies, including a gold- plated cat. Plenty of well-chosen color photos add meat to the bones, both enhancing the lively text and inducing delicious shudders. Glossary; brief list of places to visit; index. (Nonfiction. 10-12)