Changes

''Season of the Mammoth'' packs a lot of story and action into its one hundred pages. In case you hadn't guessed, this Stone Age tale speaks of an encounter between homo sapiens and Neanderthals - encounters we now know took place, even if only by the traces of Neanderthal DNA many of us have. It's a great, pacy story, full of action and excitement, and plenty of heroism, but it also leads into wider themes that can be discussed in the context of modern life. There's the obvious parallel of prejudice and racism - what's wrong with the wanderers? Is different the same thing as bad? And immigration - should land and homes be shared with incomers? And climate change too - what happens when the ecology is shifting and resources are getting scarcer? How do we share equitably?

If you enjoy tales from pre-history, [[Song Hunter by Sally Prue]] also looks at early encounters between Neanderthals and homo sapiens that we now know took place. For older readers, [[Promise of the Wolves (Wolf Chronicles 1) by Dorothy Hearst|Promise of the Wolves by Dorothy Hearst]] goes back 14,000 years to look at the domestication of wolves and the story of how dogs became man's best friend.