EGYPT MAGNIFIED

A Where’s Waldo?–style seek-and-find along the banks of the Nile.

Kitted out with a small magnifying glass (because “every Egyptologist needs a magnifying glass!”), this album features 16 Egyptian scenes rendered cartoon-style and teeming with small figures (all brown-skinned except for a slightly more variegated modern cast of tourists and researchers swarming over the weathered Sphinx). Long provides commentary that ranges from jejune (“Oars made boats travel faster and helped sailors to steer”; Senet “was similar to chess or checkers”) to nonsensical (“Workers rubbed the gold dust with sponges to make it shine”). A closing timeline runs from 6000 “BC” to the rise of the fictive “Islamic Empire” in 642 “AD.” Along the way viewers are invited to spot an underwhelming 10 people or items in each picture, and even the predictable encouragement at the end to go back in search of 57 more doesn’t represent much of a challenge, as these are all pre-located on a visual key.

Seek elsewhere.