Overview

This title is suspenseful, intriguing, and simply irresistible. Since its debut just a year ago, Mysteries Unwrapped[trademark] has captivated kids. Even reluctant readers love the appealing, high-interest topics and cool 'secret file' design that they just have to open. The newest entry to the series introduces children to some of the world's most fascinating, but now long-gone, civilizations. Find out about Ur - a thriving ancient city that disappeared under sand, learn about the Maya and the lengths they went to in order to appease the gods and puzzle out the clues to the legendary lost city of Atlantis.

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9781402739842

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Reviews

Each of these topics comes with enough built-in intrigue that kids with an eye for history's more exotic treasures will eagerly seek this out, while students looking for a little spice for research projects will be well served by factual elements and plausible conjectures that nevertheless could have been lifted right out of their favorite fantasy stories...a smooth introduction to the more exciting aspects of history and archaeology. -- Booklist

An attention-getting double cover with a die-cut window is the most - quite possibly the only - memorable feature of this cursory look at two vanished cultures and three abandoned cities. After opening with the startlingly original claim that the Fertile Crescent was where the first humans walked, Linnea sandwiches a chapter on Atlantis between descriptions of the re-discoveries of Ur and the cities of the Maya and of Pompeii and Angkor Wat. Offering a blend of standard facts and outright misinformation - the Mayans never invented the wheel (probably wrong, as ancient wheeled toys have been discovered) and didn't realize that they could use animals such as mules [and] horses... (both of which were unknown in the Americas until imported from Europe) - with a spare handful of muddy photos and stylized sketches of ancient scenes or archeologists in action for illustration, this entry in the Mysteries Unwrapped series doesn't come close to measuring up to the likes of Rebecca Stefoff's Finding the Lost Cities (1998). (Nonfiction. 10-12) (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Sharon Linnea is an award-winning biographer, novelist, and one of America's top journalists. She has an extensive background as a book and magazine editor and has worked with cultural historians and psychologists.

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