Ice Age Cave Bear : The Giant Beast That Terrified Ancient Humans

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Summary: The feared and maybe revered Cave Bear of the Ice Age
Review: I am a dinosaur person and have been ever since my Great Aunt Helen took me to the Peabody Museum at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut where they had the "brontosaurus" skeleton with the wrong head and the famous mural on the Age of Dinosaurs. There was also the display on prehistoric mammals, with its own mural, and pretty good skeletons of a sabertooth tiger and elk, but it was not the same. However, after reading "Clan of the Cave Bear" and the rest of the "Earth's Children" series by Jean M. Auel I do have much more respect for and interest in the "Ice Age Cave Bear: The Giant Beast that Terrified Ancient Humans" (the Peabody does not have a Cave Bear skeleton the last time I checked). In fact, Barabar Hehner comments indirectly on "Clan of the Cave Bear" in this book when she talks about how the theories that the Neanderthals worshipped the cave bear have been called into question (prominently on the back cover in fact). That is rather disappointing if true, but that is why fiction is often more entertaining than the truth.

This volume begins with what are knowledge of Cave Bears began, with the discovery of the Chauvet Cave in France where early humans painted images of the feared beasts on the walls. However, by the end of the ice age the last of the cave bears had died out and all that remains are hundreds of thousands of bones and the eerie cave paintings. This book goes into detail on what the cave bears looked like, where and how they lived, and examines the possible causes of their extinction. Most of the book is illustrated with paintings by Mark Hallett, the most interesting of which is the "actual size" painting of a cave bear's paw so young readers can compare its size with that of their own puny human hands. There is also a chart tracing the family tree of the bear family from Miacis to the American Black Bear of today. You will also find color photographs of cave bear skeletons as well as the paintings of the bears and the marks of claws on the walls of their caves.

The illustrations tend to overshadow the text at times, not just because of the size of Hallett's paintings but also because the type used for Hehner's text is a tad on the small size. Probably because she is working so much information into the text all about the size, behavior, dwellings, and extinction of the cave bear. Young students assigned to research this subject for class will find it useful for finding out information both about the cave bears and what encountering them would have been like for early humans. The back of the book includes a Glossary, Recommended Further Reading, Web Sites, and Index. The Ice Age Animals series also has volumes on the Mammoth and Sabertooth, also authored by Hehner, for those who enjoyed Manny and Deigo in the film "Ice Age." As for me, after this book, I still like Cave Bears best (after Dinosaurs).

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Summary: With eye-catching, realistic illustrations
Review: Mark Hallett provides eye-catching, realistic illustrations to accompany the dramatic story of massive giant cave bears who were feared thousands of years ago. Kids in grades 5-6 will find this slim-looking book anything but a simple reader: it's packed with information and smaller print than usual, but has a high interest level to keep kids excited about the prehistoric creatures.