- Hardcover: 160 pages
- Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; 1 edition (Mar 24 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 061816412X
- ISBN-13: 978-0618164127
- Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 14.5 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 454 g
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Product Details |
Product Description
From School Library Journal
Grade 4-7-Ten-year-old twins Allie and Fig Cadwallader-Newton are spending the summer with their Aunt Bijou while their archaeologist parents work in France. Suddenly, their mother is caught in a cave-in and flown home in a coma, which drags on through the summer and into the Christmas season. The twins go to school in New York City, occasionally amusing themselves at the Museum of Natural History. On one of their visits, they inadvertently spin themselves right into one of the dioramas in the Hall of European Mammals and find themselves transported back to France in 1913 on a collecting expedition. When they try to get home, things only get worse, as they spin themselves further back in time to Paleolithic France, caught between a mammoth herd and a tribe of Neanderthals. To their amazement, one blue-eyed boy speaks some English (explained later in the story), and is able to help them survive and eventually get home. Allie narrates the story but each chapter is followed by one of Fig's journal entries, complete with drawings and diagrams. The twins marvel at seeing mammoths and Neanderthals in the flesh, but also describe the dirt, discomfort, and sometimes disgusting food sources they are forced to accept. Willing suspension of disbelief is required to accept the brief explanation of the time-travel phenomena, but readers will empathize with the twins and their difficulties and triumphs, enjoy their firsthand look at Stone Age society, and share their surprise and delight at the final resolution.
Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 4-6. The author of Falcon's Egg (1995) presents another fantasy set in New York City. Twins Alice (Allie) and Thaddeus (Fig) Newton are visiting the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History when they are suddenly transported back in time to 1913 France. They attempt to return to the present, but end up spinning backwards to 35,000 B.C.E., where they meet a Neanderthal boy named Oomar, who is in training to become a shaman. Though the children discover how to return to the present, the twins are reluctant to go because the help they'll need from Oomar may cause his death. Gray carefully clarifies the fictions and fantasies (such as telepathy among Neanderthals) of her story, and the tale works well as an adventure. But the effects of the time travel are somewhat confusing: Allie and Fig originally want to go back in time to change the past (and prevent their mother's coma-inducing accident), but it's never clear how or why the twins' actions ameliorate her injuries. That aside, children will enjoy this fast-paced, entertaining story. Kay Weisman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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