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  • The Tomb Robber and King Tut by Sarah Gauch
  • Elizabeth Bush
Gauch, Sarah The Tomb Robber and King Tut; illus. by Allen Garns. Viking, 2015 36p
ISBN 978-0-670-78452-3 $16.99 Ad 6-9 yrs

In 1922, English archaeologist Howard Carter is on the verge of a great discovery in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, and a young boy, Hassan, has been invited to work on the excavation. Hassan’s father is set against it, preferring that his son not become involved in activities that are associated with their community’s reputation for tomb robbing. Hassan’s exemplary behavior wears his father down, though, and the boy joins the dig as a basket carrier, hauling loads of sand from the site. As his father predicted, the overseer calls him “tomb robber,” but Hassan persists and manages to be right at Carter’s side when he holds his candle to the hole in Tutankhamun’s burial antechamber for the first glimpse of “wonderful things.” The story makes central an issue little examined in children’s literature, the community at Gurna and their reputation for tomb robbery; however, the device to bring Hassan to the fore is hackneyed, and the book opens the issue of the Gurnawis without really examining it. The illustrations, saturated gouache with pastel textures, are [End Page 22] atmospheric, but they’re occasionally misleading; Lady Herbert (clearly alluded to in the text) is missing from the climactic scene, and an impossible glow emanates from the antechamber to illuminate Hassan’s face. An author’s note is included, but it too leaves much unsaid. This is therefore an interesting if flawed entry to the subject, and alert listeners might propose the uncomfortable question, “Why are the Gurnawis grave robbers, but Carter isn’t?”

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