Strong as Stone

Little Stone spends her free time with her beloved father, soaking up wisdom and learning how to exist in their Stone Age world. Delighted that she emulates his ferocity, strength, and bravery, he's also careful to teach her the most important skill: being kind. When he falls ill, Stone is devastated, but news of a cure hidden deep in the mountains makes her determined to brave the perilous trek and save his life. On her journey, she realizes that she doesn't have to be ferocious to survive, only kind, and her compassion wins over several prehistoric critters who are happy to help her on her way. While Browne's playful story has a familiar arc, the unusual time period brings a fantastic freshness to the proceedings; it's not every day that a girl befriends adorable megafauna. The engaging illustrations paint a vast but friendly landscape, and it's a delight to seep prehistoric humans presented as something other than unsophisticated cavemen. A Stone Age lesson in kindness, perfect for the modern world.

A prehistoric girl saves the day with courage and kindness. Stone, who appears to live during the Stone Age, lives in a small mountain village amid bison, elk, and mastodons. She and her father are close, and when he becomes ill, she knows she is the only "willing warrior" to take the arduous journey to secure the cure for him, which is guarded by vicious bears. Since her father taught her to be fierce and strong, she knows she can do it. When she encounters a huge, horned beast, she scares it with a brave, loud cry but then decides to comfort and befriend it. The two journey to where the cure lies, and when Stone responds with kindness to the ferocious bears, they become friends: "Kindness made Stone…as strong as stone." The book possesses the emotional formula of a typical animated Disney film with its focus on the father-daughter relationship; its dramatic tableaux with modulations in light that support the book's emotional undercurrents (Stone picks the healing flower by a setting sun with her new bear BFF by her side); earnest characters and emotionally anthropomorphized creatures (the girl and the beast laugh and play together, and a bear altogether dismisses the idea of the food chain when Stone hugs it); and its emphasis on a moral takeaway. A happy father-daughter reunion wraps up the tale. All human characters have light-brown skin and straight, darker brown hair. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 75.6% of actual size.) A sentimental Stone Age saga. (Picture book. 4-9) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.