Review: The Treasure of Tel Maresha
The Treasure of Tel Maresh
by Tammar Stein, illustrated by Barbara Bongini
Apples & Honey Press (imprint of Behrman House), 2024
Category: Middle Grade
Reviewer: Merle Eisman Carrus
Buy at Bookshop.org
What a delightful story about a family trip to Israel. The Treasure of Tel Maresha shares two stories of young girls in Israel at different times in history.
Becca Goldstein is on vacation with her family, visiting an archaeological dig site in Tel Maresha, Israel. She has come reluctantly on this trip with her brother, Ben and their parents. She feels like she is missing something more fun with her friends back home in Massachusetts. Becca perks up as she begins to learn about the ancient civilization that existed in this area centuries ago. The tour guide explains how families built homes of limestone dug from the ground and the resulting caveswere cool places for storage of food and other goods.
In an alternate storyline, Rebeka and her brother Benjamin are living in Maresha twenty two thousand years earlier. Rebeka and Benjamin are helping their mother prepare dinner for the family and a traveler their father has invited to join them. In return for her father’s kindness and the family hospitality, the traveler gifts her mother with a special pair of gold earrings.
The traveler has warned the family that tensions are rising in Jerusalem and it is advisable for the family to move. He offers to help them travel to Athens with his caravan. Maresha is near where the Maccabees lived and fought with the Greeks. Though some Edomites and Jewish people lived peacefully together, bad feelings grew after the Maccabees defeated the Greeks. As Rebeka and her family pack up quickly to escape the hostility that is building between the Edomites and the Jewish people, one of the earrings is lost in the cave.
Becca and her family are learning how to sift the sand in the cave to look for artifacts that show what life was like back in ancient Maresha. Becca’s brother Ben finds part of a pot with a handle, an exciting archaeological find. Becca is looking carefully, sifting through the dirt to look for something also. At the last moment, she discovers the ancient lost earring.
The plot carries the reader back and forth between the families, generations apart, to show how similar life can be no matter where or when you are living.
The illustrations are wonderfully drawn from the imagination of Barbara Bongini. With simple pen and ink line drawings, she visualizes for the reader what it would look like both today and years ago to live in the heat of Maresha. The expression of a disappointed girl on vacation with her family, the clothing of the desert dwellers, and imagined gold earrings are beautifully illustrated.
This story shares true facts about dig sites, and the historical references are all integral to the story. This is a great book for middle school readers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to learn about archeology in Israel and some of the country's history.
What a delightful story about a family trip to Israel. The Treasure of Tel Maresha shares two stories of young girls in Israel at different times in history.
Becca Goldstein is on vacation with her family, visiting an archaeological dig site in Tel Maresha, Israel. She has come reluctantly on this trip with her brother, Ben and their parents. She feels like she is missing something more fun with her friends back home in Massachusetts. Becca perks up as she begins to learn about the ancient civilization that existed in this area centuries ago. The tour guide explains how families built homes of limestone dug from the ground and the resulting caveswere cool places for storage of food and other goods.
In an alternate storyline, Rebeka and her brother Benjamin are living in Maresha twenty two thousand years earlier. Rebeka and Benjamin are helping their mother prepare dinner for the family and a traveler their father has invited to join them. In return for her father’s kindness and the family hospitality, the traveler gifts her mother with a special pair of gold earrings.
The traveler has warned the family that tensions are rising in Jerusalem and it is advisable for the family to move. He offers to help them travel to Athens with his caravan. Maresha is near where the Maccabees lived and fought with the Greeks. Though some Edomites and Jewish people lived peacefully together, bad feelings grew after the Maccabees defeated the Greeks. As Rebeka and her family pack up quickly to escape the hostility that is building between the Edomites and the Jewish people, one of the earrings is lost in the cave.
Becca and her family are learning how to sift the sand in the cave to look for artifacts that show what life was like back in ancient Maresha. Becca’s brother Ben finds part of a pot with a handle, an exciting archaeological find. Becca is looking carefully, sifting through the dirt to look for something also. At the last moment, she discovers the ancient lost earring.
The plot carries the reader back and forth between the families, generations apart, to show how similar life can be no matter where or when you are living.
The illustrations are wonderfully drawn from the imagination of Barbara Bongini. With simple pen and ink line drawings, she visualizes for the reader what it would look like both today and years ago to live in the heat of Maresha. The expression of a disappointed girl on vacation with her family, the clothing of the desert dwellers, and imagined gold earrings are beautifully illustrated.
This story shares true facts about dig sites, and the historical references are all integral to the story. This is a great book for middle school readers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to learn about archeology in Israel and some of the country's history.
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