Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura: a book review

Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura

Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura

Stone Age Boy is a well-illustrated and well-researched picture book for children featuring a modern boy going back in time after falling into a cave. He emerges in what looks like Upper Palaeolithic France, probably around 25,000 years ago and meets a girl his own age and learns all about her extended family.

There are detailed pictures showing the girl’s family doing all the things Upper Palaeolithic people did: hunting, butchering animals for food, processing hide for clothes, knapping flints into tools, making fire, cooking. Some of these images are labelled to make the actions clearer.

The boy and girl go back into the cave to see cave paintings when a cave bear starts to attack! The boy falls through a hole in the floor and ends up back at home. This leaves unanswered questions about whether the girl escaped from the cave bear. Pupils could imagine what happened to the girl afterwards, especially as they boy is shown as an adult later. He has become an archaeologist and is digging in the cave.

There’s also a useful timeline and glossary at the back to help access some of the concepts. For further activities to go with this book, see this blog post by Playing by the Book or this one by Learning Parade.

2 thoughts on “Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura: a book review

  1. Pingback: Book review: The First Drawing by Mordicai Gerstein | Schools Prehistory

Comments are closed.