Book Review: Adventures in the Ice Age

Bailey is highly successful and well liked in this field, having already written Adventures in Ancient Egypt, Adventures with the Vikings, Adventures in Ancient Greece, Adventures in Ancient China, and Adventures in the Middle Ages. And she is equally good in this book, with brilliant glimpses of what life was like back in the good old, cold days of the first humans to express complex thoughts.

The Binkertons (Emma, Josh, and Libby) are at it again, in a routine that will seem familiar yet not worn. These fun children pay another visit to their friend Julian T. Pettigrew at the Good Times Travel Agency. And before they know it, they're off on another adventure!

As always, you can read these books two ways: You can follow the adventures of the Binkertons, and you can find out more about the world they're experiencing. The device is a Guidebook, which contains basic information about the people, places, and customs the Binkerton kids are seeing.

The setting in this book is France, a vehicle for showing off cave paintings that still inspire and puzzle archaeologists. And for the first time, the Binkertons have to perform tasks in order to return to their own time. (Before they had only to read what was in the Guidebook, a device that the author uses to introduce information about the time and culture being examined.) One of these tasks is to find Art. And although the Binkertons think that Art is a man, Art turns out to be Art, cave paintings!

The Binkerton children find out all about the people who lived long ago, how they survived the cold and hunted for and gathered their food. They even discover that the pretty horses that they discover at one point are something that the Ice Age people hunt!

All in all, this is a fun book. Students will learn and have fun doing so!

So join the Binkertons as they romp their way through another arena in the historical world!

Graphics courtesy of Kids Can Press