School Library Journal Review

Gr 5-7-This uneven time-travel novel features archaeology-loving Esther, an 11-year-old living in Texas. She spends much of her summer vacation hanging out at a dig near her school. She becomes friends with the scientists who work at the site and is often of help to them. When she unknowingly walks through a simmering light among some trees, she is transported back 11,000 years. Esther is quickly taken in by a small clan of nomads, some of whom believe she brings good luck. Quickly enough, she learns their language and customs and travels along as they search for food, hunt for mammoth, and attend a large clan gathering, all the while searching for a portal back to modern times. The strong point of this novel is Griffin's research, which is clearly thorough. Unfortunately, her attempt to educate readers is at the expense of plot and character development. Conflicts arise from time to time as not all clan members believe Esther is good luck, but the group often settles problems calmly and she is never abandoned. The personalities of the prehistoric people never move beyond being either good or bad. Esther's time in the past drags on for many months and climaxes when she teaches the clan to line dance as a means of conflict resolution. A strictly additional purchase for those libraries in need of prehistoric fiction.-Karen T. Bilton, Somerset County Library, Bridgewater, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.