Hello, friends! Our book today is Live Like a Hunter Gatherer: Discovering the Secrets of the Stone Age, written by Naomi Walmsley and illustrated by Mia Underwood, an enlightening look at the prehistoric ages of man.

Do you have what it takes to survive the Stone Age? This comprehensive nonfiction guidebook to the lives of the earliest humans offers both the tools and the knowledge to help young readers answer that question. Bookworms can test their hand at building a Mesolithic shelter, making a (cloth-tipped) bow and arrow, or creating cave art, all while learning how early hunter-gatherers lived, played, slept, and even brushed their teeth!

Highly informative. The Stone Age isn’t a historical era that gets a lot of coverage in children’s nonfiction, so it’s awesome to see this extremely detailed and interactive book. The topics covered are engaging, and Walmsley deftly shifts genres between blocks of descriptive text, DIY-style instructions, and even fictional “diary”-type narratives. Underwood’s illustrations are rich yet clear-cut, and do well at establishing an atmosphere while also imparting visual information. Both the art and text do a wonderful job of dispelling the myth of hunting and gathering being segregated along gender lines; girls and women are shown hunting, boys and men are shown gathering. Some of the try-this-at-home activities will certainly make careful parents nervous (especially those that call for whittling knives), but safety precautions are mentioned, though they could be better highlighted visually. The length is best for middle-grade readers, but JJ and I thoroughly enjoyed flipping through this one, and we’d absolutely recommend it. Baby Bookworm approved!

(Note: A copy of this book was provided to The Baby Bookworm by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)