Digging Deep: How Science Unearths Puzzles from the Past by Laura Scandiffio - OPTIONAL

Digging Deep: How Science Unearths Puzzles from the Past by Laura Scandiffio, 103 pages.  NON-FICTION Annik Press, 2019.  $15.  

Content: Language: G; Mature Content: G; Violence: PG.  

BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

This book covers six different discoveries in archeology that modern science has been able to uncover more facts about.  The discoveries include Otzi the Iceman, an ancient poison, a lost city in Cambodia, lost ships in the Arctic, the lost grave of Richard III and the Chauvet Cave art.  Each chapter has a story involving the topic and then it has a section about how modern archeologists can use different technology or testing to determine facts about history that we haven’t known before.  At the end of the chapter there is a summary about what that discovery has changed about our perceptions of history.  

I wanted to love this book because its subtitle had me totally intrigued, but it is so wordy and dense that it takes patience to wade through the information.  It is interesting, and certain chapters were more entertaining than others (the Richard the III chapter read like a mystery), but I’m not sure students would be compelled to continue to read.  Also, I have an ARC and the pictures were blurry and unattractive, which I’m sure will be cleaned up for the final book, but I think the pictures will either make or break readers interest.  

Reviewer, C. Peterson