27. Your Mother Was a Neanderthal

Title: Your Mother was a Neanderthal
Author: Jon Scieszka
Illustrator: Lane Smith
Publisher: Trumpet Club Inc.
Copyright Date: 1993
Number of Pages: 76
Reading Level: 9+
Genre: Adventure/Humor

Summary
Joe and his two friends Sam and Fred can travel through time because of a book that Joe’s uncle gave him. Sam came up with the idea that they should travel to the Stone Age and take simple things that would amaze the people so they would make the boys kings. This time on their adventure though they happen to find themselves completely naked. Sam has his glasses, Fred has his cap and Joe still has his straw. The boys try to fashion clothes out of big leaves to try and cover themselves. Suddenly a huge dinosaur comes roaring through the trees and the boys see caveguys running away. Sam keeps saying that there is no way there are dinosaurs because people and dinosaurs never coexisted. They hide anyway. The dinosaur comes up to them and then all of a sudden it hiccups and it crumbles into giggles. There were three girls inside the costume. The girls take the goys to “Ma” and the boys are locked up. Ma resembles Joe’s mom a lot and at first it really throws them off. Ma and the girls come to get the boys and they look at them as if its time to eat. The boys use a diversion tactic, screaming and pointing in another direction, to escape. They stumble across the caveguys they saw earlier and go to their pit. They try to leave and are nearly eaten by a saber tooth tiger. The boys use the straw that Joe brought to make loud noises and make a monster costume to scare the tiger away. It works and they go back to the cave to find that one of the cavegirls is trapped in the cave by a huge boulder. The boys think of a way to use a lever to move the boulder and get the caveguys to help. After they free the girl they all dance around a fire that night and the boys find the cave drawing that takes them home.

Recommendation
Young boys would love this book. It’s a great little adventure to get the creative mind going and maybe even some mischief.

Problems/Conflict
Scieszka handled the being naked really well and left the reasoning as to why the cavegirls and caveguys needed to get together just hanging. Well handled.

My Reaction
This book really catches your attention at the beginning. “The three of us were standing around completely, unbelievably, and absolutely naked.” I think its funny that Sam thinks to go to the Stone Age just to be king, do kids really think like this? Its also comical that the girls are more evolved than the males in the stone age. The less intelligent boys are scared of the women and have to learn how to make fire from them. The pop quiz at the end of the book was an ingenious addition.