Needs more description

The story is sweet but very simple and somewhat unfinished (maybe there will be a sequel?) but as it’s so simple it would be lovely for the landscapes to be described in more detail to enable the reader to really picture the world.

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wonderful

so well informed, entertaining and moving. hope this is the beginning of a series!

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Rewards Aplenty

I was initially quite sceptical about this novel. A book by Professor Alice Roberts with an eye to younger readers? And fiction? The happiness is that my scepticism entirely and quickly melted - like the winter snows in this audio-book and I was fully engaged with the journey of the hunter gathers in the Ice Age. Roberts appears genuinely engaged with the well-drawn characters that populate this story, so much so that you take them to you. Roberts twins the day-to-day demands on these people to kill to live with little sentimentality showing, yet they have characters with deep concern for others; showing a complexity of feelings and thoughts. These are people not cyphers of for a ‘let’s imagine we follow groups of these ancient people as they move along their annual migratory path from seasonal winter to summer living grounds’. Additional depth is added by the presence of an outsider and it more clearly than anything else weaves a sense of humanity in the kinds of things that must have happened some 30,000 years ago. (This thread will reflect on us in the modern world too.) But stop. This is an adventure story that is so well told and it is hard to see how anyone cannot identify with the main characters. There is nothing not to like. And because it is a book about a journey of adventure, there is a momentum that pull’s the listener or reader along. But stop again. This is an adult reviewing his sense of the novel. It is cast as for readers 9 and over. It does not matter. It will work for young people and older people alike. The audio-book is gifted with the skills of performer, Sofia Engstrand. Fresh voiced and sympathetic to the characters she voice-realises she will please so many. From this novel’s dramatic ending, and by what we know from the author’s own mouth, there will be a sequel it is to be hoped that Engstrand will be engaged to bring that to life too. If I have any regrets it is a want for description of scenery. Also, it is my own ignorance in terms of not knowing or being able to visualise the many different plants, including trees that help make this novel so rich. If I was picking my way through the audio book I would have scribbled them down and then looked them up, which I suppose I may do still. Select this novel with confidence.

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Sweet story until the ending ruins it

I love this Author but the ending of this book completely ruins the story. I'm looking for a book that I can listen to with my children and I'm glad I listened to this first with out them. The write up suggests Tuuli will find adventure with a new boy. I was expecting a story of how we allied with wolves and also how we may have joined with Neanderthals to explain why we have some of their DNA. The story starts off very sweetly and I really liked how the historical facts are intertwined with the story, it feels educational with out being teachers, perfect for kids... but, spoiler... I could see Undar and Tuuli get closer and the story of them breaking away from tradition but then that is cut really short and I was left feeling really confused and like it was such an abrupt end to the story of early humans. But worst of all, if my kids jad been listening and expecting the ending we could all see coming and had that replaced by a violent death they would have been beside themselves. And the roller coaster that they character might have been saved was just the nail in the coffin for me. I definitely won't be letting my kids listen to the book which is such a shame because it had such potential.

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1 person found this helpful