cover image Gold & Silver, Silver & Gold: Tales of Hidden Treasure

Gold & Silver, Silver & Gold: Tales of Hidden Treasure

David Christiana, Alvin Schwartz. Farrar Straus Giroux, $14 (128pp) ISBN 978-0-374-32690-6

Schwartz carefully assembles facts, fiction and folklore around a fascinating subject for children: the finding of buried treasure. In the now-familiar style of Schwartz's Fat Man in a Fur Coat and Tales of Trickery , the book is documented with extensive explanatory notes and an inclusive bibliography. The text is well-paced as it touches on the various aspects of treasure: shipwrecks, pirates, abandoned mines, Indian legends, buried booty, maps, codes, secret signs, ciphers and more. He doesn't neglect fictional treasures, mentioning Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and Edgar Allan Poe's The Gold Bug , nor does he stint on the technologies that have aided inveterate treasure huntersthe diving bell, metal detectors, submarines, scuba gear. Christiana's soft black-and-white drawings and decorations enhance the text, offering readers a treasure trove of information they'll return to again and again. Ages 10-up. (Dec.)