Jodie’s Shabbat Surprise

Previously seen in Jodie’s Hanukkah Dig and Jodie’s Passover Adventure, Levine’s Israeli heroine who dreams of being an archaeologist like her father returns in a third adventure, this time based on a true story: a dog running through Jerusalem’s Ramot Forest that fell into a hole and inadvertently discovered a grape-pressing area from the First Temple period (circa 1000 to 586 B.C.E.). For Jody, her dog Digger’s find is more than just historically significant: marshaling family and friends, and with advice from one of her father’s colleagues, she turns the site into the perfect surprise birthday present for him: “because the best present you can give an archaeologist is something very, very old!” The end of the story shines as Jodie and her friends prepare the site and reenact the way wine was made 2,000 years ago (“Everyone was stomping and squishing and squashing the grapes so that the juice flowed over the stones into the pool”), but the setup is slow-going, and Topaz’s (Zvuvi’s Israel) soft-focus watercolors bring little momentum, character, or sense of place to the story. Ages 5–9. (May)