Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Kitamura's (Me and My Cat?) invites readers to explore the Stone Age with this accomplished story of a boy who falls through a hole in his dull, gray environment and somehow emerges into a grassy, wild world. There he meets a girl: "I don't think I looked like any of the boys she knew," he says as she feels his navy-blue pullover, inspects his pale-blue sneakers and tries on his glasses. She leads him to her family's settlement, where "people had no knives or forks, no plastic-not even any metal." In step-by-step, captioned illustrations, readers observe how to start a fire; dry meat on wooden racks; and warm liquid "by putting a red-hot stone into a leather bag." The tribe also spears a reindeer and dances to celebrate. "I joined in on air guitar," the boy jokes, jamming in the background. Without superfluous gore, Kitamura depicts dead caribou and draws Lascaux-like cave paintings that acknowledge the importance of animals. (The author pictures mammoths and other fauna on the end pages too, but only a bear participates in the drama.) An imaginative way to kindle interest in, and admiration for, the people of a far distant era. Ages 4-8. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-4-A modern boy tells how he trips in the woods and finds himself in a cave during the Stone Age. Om introduces him to her family and way of life, in spite of the fact that they don't understand one another's language. Many small drawings in ink and watercolor show how they made tools, used fire to cook their food, and hunted reindeer. These people have a surprisingly modern appearance, and the boy seems at home playing his air guitar at a celebration. Om shows him a cave, the walls of which are covered with lifelike animal paintings. A spread with the single word "Wow!" is just right. Evading a cave bear, the boy falls into a hole and returns to his own time. Years later, he becomes an archaeologist and searches for signs of Om's people. A time line and author's note give the historical basis of the story, and endpapers show different animals as they might have appeared in cave paintings. Show children the beautiful reproductions in Patricia Lauber's Painters of the Caves (National Geographic, 1998), and read this book along with Rafe Martin's Will's Mammoth (Putnam, l989) for a storytime of awe and wonder.-Mary Jean Smith, Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary) A boy walking in the woods finds himself falling "down, down, down" through time and space, landing in the Stone Age. He befriends a girl named Om and learns about prehistoric society by watching her people make fire, prepare food, use tools, and celebrate a successful hunt (he plays air guitar at the festivities). Om takes him to a cave, where he's awed by the realistic-looking cave paintings before being threatened by a bear and falling back into his own time. Through the boy's first-person observations, Kitamura makes Om's society come alive. He doesn't overload readers; sentences are concise and easy to read, with a poetic lilt. Kitamura uses different shades and line strokes for the Stone Age and the present day. Everything's sharper in the past, especially the boy's blue shirt, which, along with his glasses, makes him stand out for readers. The well-designed pages make effective use of white space, particularly in a double-page spread of small illustrations that demonstrate everyday tasks. At the end of the book, the narrator tells readers that he grew up to be an archaeologist: "I look in the past for signs of Om. And I never stop learning from her and her people." Readers will enjoy the book as a history lesson, a dream fantasy adventure, and a story of friendship. Timeline, index, and author's note appended. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Waking after a sudden fall, a lad finds himself back in the Stone Age, where he's taken in by a peaceful extended family of hunters, tries his hand at flint-knapping and gets a glimpse of marvelous cave paintings. In Kitamura's cartoon art, the prehistoric folk look like members of a well-bathed hippie commune, but like the narrator, some young readers will by fascinated by the ingenious ways they shape stone, bone and wood into a variety of weapons, small decorations and tools. Waking up in the modern era after another fall, the child's experiences are dismissed as dreams--but they affect him so deeply that he grows up to be an archaeologist. Dream or not, the journey makes an engaging, lightweight tale with enough prehistorical information to rate a short index. A good choice for armchair archaeologists and time-travelers alike. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
