Who'd have thought that Catherine the Great's husband's murder was passed off as a death due to haemorrhoids!
Well-researched and fascinating especially as the book stays faithfully with the focus of the first inoculations which then led to the eradication of a virus that killed a sixth of all it attacked. Thoroughly absorbing.
Life in Stone Age Britain was harsh and life was cheap. Children had to grow up fast, learning the skills they needed to survive through hunting and fashioning everything they needed from the resources around them and so this is the environment that Zeta and her little brother Finn are born into, in the Mesolithic era. I really enjoyed the detail of how flints are struck to produce cutting edges, the uses of antlers and how it is possible to sew leather with bone needles. and imagine carrying your drinking water in the bladder of an animal.
The children think their life is safe enough and privileged too but then their father – the clan chief – is murdered and the children must flee for their lives.
It is an exciting adventure full of tension as the children encounter a host of dangers on their journey to find their mother’s birth-tribe. Family loyalty and love is strong and the descriptions of the ancient lands evocative. This is a beautifully produced book, carefully written and fact-checked as far as that is possible for a tale set in the distant past when language may just have been developing.
Young readers will love it, and so did this older bookworm.
When Zeta's father is killed, she and her brother, Finn, together with Zeta's pet wolf, Kuba, are forced to flee across the country to seek sanctuary with their mother's birth tribe. On this perilous journey they have to learn to outwit their pursuers and put into practice all their hunting skills and knowledge of the land. Will they survive the journey and be accepted by their mother's tribe? And can they save their friend Arden from certain death?
Set in 7000BCE around the middle of the Mesolithic period of hunter gatherers and based on careful research, Stone Arrows is an…
This was first published in 2008 but I was delighted to discover it this year. It piqued my interest for two reasons. It was set during The Troubles in Northern Ireland and wove in was also an archaeological discovery of a girl who died in 80 AD. Moving and perceptive and very educational, but a rippingly engrossing read too.
DIGGING FOR PEAT in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the body of a child, and it looks like she’s been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him—his brother on hunger-strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his parents arguing over the Troubles, and him in it up to the neck, blackmailed into acting as courier to God knows what—a little voice comes to him in his dreams, and the mystery of the bog child unfurls.
Bog Child is an astonishing novel exploring the sacrifices made in the name of peace,…
Teenage brothers, Alex and James, are on a hazardous journey taking a package to their parents in the jungles of Nepal. This package contains a ransom to free their parents from the Maoists, a group that opposes the Nepali government. The book is fast-paced but manages to weave in descriptions of the wildlife the boy encounter. The brothers meet many people some of whom are helpful but they are unsure who they can trust. After avoiding various wild animals, they fall down an unclimbable hole and end up in a vast cave system. Will the squabbling siblings escape? The illustrations feature many of the weird animals the boys meet on their journeying.
