Boy of the Painted Cave

Author: Justin Denzel

Main Characters: Tao, Graybeard, Kala, Ram, Volt

This is a story about a boy in prehistoric times.  It was a time of mammoths and ice ages.  I have made the assumption that the story takes place in area of the Pyrenees Mountains called Lascaux.  Tao was born to a young mother who died soon after he was born.  He was born with one foot that was deformed, so his father left him to be eaten by hyenas (as they did with any baby that was ill or deformed).  Kala, an older wise woman, rescued him and chose to raise him herself.  At the age of twelve, he became more and more wanting to challenge the status quo: he wanted to be a cave painter.  Only shamans could be a cave painter and he was far from being a shaman.  He decided that all of the taboo and the bad spirits were not for him, so he left the village and found his own cave to be his own man.  He befriended a starving wolf dog and together they hunted and lived.  Along the way one day, he happened upon the shaman called Graybeard.  He remembered him from all of the times he came to the village to celebrate the hunt and paint in the secret caves.  The surprising friendship and the rest of the story will have to be experienced.  I am definitely going to use this book with my sixth graders.