Review Detail

Hide and Seek History: Ancient Greeks

Middle Grade Non-Fiction 329

Gorgeous Way to Learn about the Ancient Greeks

March 10, 2024

Overall rating

4.7

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

5.0

Learning Value

5.0

Young readers are fascinated by Ancient Greece and Rome once they are introduced to it; look at the success o f the 2005 The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, and all of the other books that have come out since. I was a Latin teacher many years ago, and my students loved to learn about the history of ancient civilizations as well as the language. It's not a surprise that this superb book was first published in Great Britain; if you want some excellent deep dives into Greece and Rome, there are a lot of fantastic titles published by the British Museum, and I even managed to score a CD of Deary's The Rotten Romans that came in a box of Frosties cereal when I visited London back in 2000.

This is a gorgeous book crammed with lots of facts, and the lift a flap format is constantly fascinating. This is more of an introduction that a systematic investigation of ancient culture, and centers nicely on the archaeology and what various finds have told us about the Greeks as well as mythology. One of my favorite pages was the Labors of Hercules, arranged rather like a clock, with a flap for each one of the tasks he completed. There's a nice spread on "Ancient Greek Geeks" which covers all of the various scholarly pursuits like literature, astronomy, math, zoology, and philosophy, and also one on war and combat. This finishes with an exploration of daily life that gives an updated view of slavery, as well as a timeline.

Good Points

I was impressed with the depth of scholarship on the facts. The pages on archaeology included a brief biography of Spyridon Marinatos; I studied with his daughter, Nanno, who lead tours of various archaeological sites for some of my college classes when I lived in Athens. The fact that Homer might not have been one person is addressed, and this gets double bonus points for mentioning that Minoan bull jumping, widely depicted in the art on Crete, was probably not an actual thing.

Marx' illustrations have a lot of tradional red, black, and tan in them (think red figure and black figure pottery), but also have some lovely blues and violets that made me think of the Disney Hercules movie. There are a lot of flaps, sometimes two deep, that will entice children to spend a lot of time looking through this book. Some of these were a little hard to open; I would recommend going through the book with a think but blunt letter openener and opening all of the flaps before giving it to any children, to cut down on frustration as well as damage.

There are not a lot of picture books about Ancient Greece, and this would be fun for younger readers to page through, although the reading level is more suited to older children. If you need more than one book on the topic, I'd also look at Ancient Greece for Kids (Unfolding the Past, 2), DK's Eyewitness: Ancient Greeks, and (for readers who want more information and fewer pictures), The Thrifty Guide to Ancient Greece: A Handbook for Time Travelers by Stokes and Bonet.