Satoshi Kitamura is a highly acclaimed illustrator from Tokyo, Japan. He won the 1993 Mother Goose Award for the most exciting newcomer to children's book illustration for Angry Arthur. His other books include The Carnival of the Animals (9781844280216), Igor, the Bird Who Couldn't Sing and When Sheep Cannot Sleep: The Counting Book. Visit Satoshi's website: www.satoshiland.com
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.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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 Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
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