Stone Age Boy

My three year-old daughter received this book as a gift. She LOVES it! The book tells the story of a boy who finds himself in prehistoric times. The boy befriends a little girl named Om, who becomes his guide. Om and her family/tribe teach the boy about making tools, cooking with fire, cave paintings... when the "Stone Age Boy" returns to the present day, he grows up to become an archeologist, always looking for traces of Om and her people. This book is fantastic because it teaches a lot, without being "lesson-y." The story is simple, the illustration is beautiful... and, it is seriously "gender neutral." Great for boys AND girls! I highly recommend it for any child between the ages of 2 and probably 6 or so. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the price on this book. What a steal! I bought copies for my daughter's teacher, and for her friends' birthdays. Buy this book - your kid(s) will love it!

I picked this up by chance at the library. My 5 & 7 yr old boys absolutely love this book, as do I! It is about a boy who trips and falls into a hole. He wakes up in the stone age where he meets a little girl the same age. There he learns about how they lived: how to make tools, how they hunted, how they cooked, how they worked as a community. It is filled with information, yet a quick, fun read. The ending is cute, when he wakes up back home he says everyone tells him it was a dream, but then there is a cute little 'clue' the author refers back to to make you wonder...! We have read it so many times, my oldest asked me if we could just go buy our own copy. My youngest has asked to bring it in to share at school. Boy or girl, get this, you really won't be disappointed.

I adore Satoshi Kitamura's books. My six year old daughter's favorite is The Comic Adventures of Boots. I like this one the best because you really learn a lot about life in the Stone Age, and the story has a surprise ending. While I was able to find Kitamura's books in California libraries, his work is sadly unavailable in my current location, Montgomery County, MD. I will continue to order his books from the UK, but I wish his work was more readily available in the United States.

I had to teach prehistory to kids this year, and this book was invaluable. It shows every day life in a tribe of hunter-gatherers, but in a way that makes them seem -- what's the word -- human. ;) A boy falls down a shaft and wakes up in the stone age. A little girl finds him, and her family takes him in. Over the course of weeks, he learns how to do things their way, and appreciate their way of life. It is beautiful.

Used this in class to intro Paleolithic age and it went over great. The kids were talking about it weeks later.

Great info, beautiful illustrations. Perfect for our Early Humans unit.

Like another reviewer, we picked this up by chance at the library. My daughter- four years old next month- was hooked from the first reading. It is a simple story written quite straightforward, and the illustrations are simple and fantastic, which is perfect for young minds being introduced to big concepts like time, and history, and archeology. But it also manages to invite little minds to think about what is already familiar to them, like "making things", in a more sophisticated way (like making tools out of found materials to make other things which serve practical purposes for the group). It also gives them a way to look at "work" from a family/community perspective, which is difficult to get in books that four year olds can grasp. We went to the American Museum of Natural History and were able to discuss things we saw in the exhibit (having to do with tribal living in North America) on a WHOLE NEW LEVEL after reading this book just twice at the time. I am surprised there aren't many, many more positive reviews about this book. Word must not be out yet. I am now looking for others like it, if indeed there be any. ;)

Very nice way of presenting to kids how people used to do things a long long time ago, when they didn’t have forks or plates, or any plastic things (all things kids now take for granted as part of their daily routines). My kids followed in wonder as we went through it. It conveyed the message well. They got it. And moved on. It’s not the kind of book that kids want to read over and over again. I understand other reviewers who described it as boring. I would say, for homeschooling purposes, when you are looking to convey a piece of the evolution story with a nice book (i couldn’t have explained it better myself !), it works very well. Just don't expect an all-time favourite bedtime story.

This is a deceptively modest, simple little picture book by a brilliant writer & illustrator for children. Read it with your child. A boy falls down a sort of rabbit hole in a forest - oblique reminder of Alice here - is this perhaps a dream? - and finds himself alone in another era of the world. Until he finds a new friend, who brings him to her family! I can't imagine a better introduction to the idea of prehistoric times, to people long ago very like us, living very differently from us. I'm a grown up and I learned about a few stone age cultural techniques - so you can too. You will learn about hunting, celebrating, family life, crafts and arts - and cave paintings. The illustrations are detailed & accurate depictions - advice was taken from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford - but they are not insistently didactic, not like instructive illustrations for a children's encyclopedia. There's emotion and imaginative intensity in Kitamura's picture story telling, always. The child of the modern world bonds easily with our ancestors Unsurprising then to find this boy back in our world years later, working as an archaeologist, seeking traces of his former friends and driven by a deep sense of connection that derives from his early absorption in their long ago lives. (This suggestion makes sense to a generation whose earliest acquaintance with history was emotional identification. Children of 7 might be asked to imagine a day in the life of Hugh the Norman page.) Always, looking at Kitamura's picture stories, with their apparently artless, minimal narratives, I'm reminded of the richness of children's inner stories, often hidden to adult eyes. The simplicity of the text contrasts with the glorious adventure and joy of the inner world. "What if..." and "Let's pretend..." are never far away. "In The Attic" is a startling evocation of the distance between that childish stream of consciousness, the flow of rich imagery and imaginings running parallel to our adult perceptions of everyday experience. Story telling, children are making sense of the world even long before verbal invention appears. So read this slowly with your child, taking all the time in the world to talk about the pictures. Later, read Stig of the Dump together. Similar mood but time travel from the past into the future. A stone age boy lives resourcefully on the margins of our civilization and brings his child friend back - briefly, hauntingly- to the times of Stonehenge.

We were studying Stig of the Dump but used Stone Age Boy for a shorter narrative for pupils to base their narratives on. It was perfect. It is a lovely story and beautifully illustrated. We particularly liked the sections that detailed Stone Age life - so useful for history lessons! Definitely recommend.

Un cuento muy bonito

My son was studying the stoneage at school and we came across this book. He loved the story and linked with his work perfectly (in fact they read it school at a later date!) It’s a lovely story with great illustrations.