#21 Treasure Hunting: Looking for Lost Riches

Title:  Treasure Hunting: Looking for Lost Riches

Author:  Caitlin Scott

Illustrator: Multiple photographers’  pictures

Publisher:  Red Brick Learning

Copyright:  2004

Pages:  48

Genre/Category:  Nonfiction

I chose this book because I really like the idea of treasure hunting – of going out and searching for things lost in time, or maybe just hidden under the surface. This book was relatively short, but was packed with a lot of great information and good pictures. This book talked about different treasures people have found through history, tools of the trade, and secret codes that some people used to hide their treasure. It also included a glossary of common words and some internet links people could look up to find out more about treasure hunting. 

The illustrations in this book are photographs taken by many different photographers. The text is mostly formal, with illustrations appearing above or below the photos.  Some pages have text opposite the illustrations. The photos vary, from old black and white photographs of people with treasure they’ve found to newer, brighter photos of some of the coins and others treasures.

This book is definitely meant for upper level elementary students. I would say starting around fifth grade. There is a lot of text, but also a lot of photos included to break up long paragraphs. While I said this book had a lot of text, I feel that it was not overwhelming and was very engaging. I think this would be a great book to use as a supplemental text in the classroom. This book would be great for students to use to research treasure hunting or some of the lost treasures over the years. It also provides a lot of good vocabulary words to draw the students’ attention to.