Reviews: (by author)

Briggs, Raymond. Ug, Boy Genius of the Stone Age. New York: Knopf, 2001. ISBN 0-375-81611-9. $15.95.

Raymond Briggs is one of the best-known author/illustrators of children's books, for example The Snowman and one of my favorites, Fungus the Bogeyman. His new book, Ug, brings his wicked sense of humor in both text and art to the story of a misunderstood genius of time long ago. Poor Ug, like the rest of the Stone Age people, has to make do with...stones. Stones are carved into pants, used for beds and bedcovers, and for games like baseball (stone bats and balls don't work well) and stone boats (which, of course, sink). A smart little fellow and persistent as well, Ug comes up with superb new ideas for using stones, such as shaping them into wheels and piling them into corrals to trap and keep animals, and inventions such as wooden boats and animal fur trousers and bedclothes. He also suggests "bending" the stream so the families don't have to walk so far to get water. But, alas, he's way ahead of his time. Worse, he gets little support from his dim-witted, henpecked father, and his mother?well, this topless cave dweller, named Dugs, is sick of hearing words from her son like "soft," "warm," and "nice" and does little but yell at him and her mate. She doesn't even want to pursue the idea that food cooked with fire might taste better than the raw, squiggly bits she puts on the family's plates. "PLAY," she tells him, "Don't just THINK!" She's a one-woman explanation for why the Neanderthals died out.

In his very funny running commentary on the story, presented as footnotes, Briggs speaks to the readers, informing them of the rampant anachronisms in the story, such as the notion that Stone Age people had any idea they were living in the Stone Age. At the end of the story, still in stone trousers and now an old man, Ug paints animals on his cave wall next to his parents' graves. Briggs points to the paint can as an anachronism and depicts the grizzled Ug saying, "...It can't always be like this...People WILL have nice, soft, warm trousers...One day...perhaps...in the future...things WILL get better...won't they?"

In answer, at least we do have soft, warm, nice clothes and cooked food.

Kids will love discussing this hilarious book?and even the youngest among them will learn what "anachronism" means.

Highly recommended.

A.A. Nov. '02

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