Clan of the Cavebear
Jean Auel
The first time I read "Clan of the Cavebear" was I think freshman year in high school and I'm trying to remember why I picked it up. And I think it's because somebody in my drama class did a monologue from it and she was a friend of mine and she really loved books and so did I. And I'm like, hey, I'm going to go read that. And I probably read it like five times now.
"Clan of the Cavebear" is the beginning of a five book series. And the concept is, or rather, the story is it's about dawn of man, and so the main character in it is somebody named Ila, who's kind of a next step in evolution. But she's five years old and an earthquake ravages Ila and her family's dead and gone and everything. So, she goes wandering and gets attacked by a lion and left for dead. And some people called "the clan" find her and take her in and they are the previous step in evolution, I guess you'd say Cro-Magnon.
So, the book is about her growing up in a foreign environment and then becomes family and home to her. So it's what she knows, but she's having to deal with the trials and tribulations of being different from them, both physically as well as her strength is different, her capabilities are different. She's also much taller than them.
It almost seems as though it could be a biography. Obviously, it's fictional. We don't know the story of one person back in whatever AD, but it really reads as though it could be fictional.
The author, Jean Auel, I believe has journeyed to places where there's you know drawings from early man and things like that. So, she's really done her best to make this real and you know tools that they use and things like that, caves they lived in. She really brought a reality to it.
Out of five stars, I'd give this book a five.
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