When two hairy cave people find themselves with a new baby unlike them in every way – it’s not hairy, it doesn’t grunt, it won’t eat meat, and it prefers sticks to rocks – they’re not sure what to make of it. Who knew child-rearing could be so confounding? 

Their small child likes to do strange things like sing and draw and play with sticks. None of these activities seem like a good idea: they’re too novel, too different. But you never know; sometimes different is necessary. When the small family is threatened by an angry mammoth, it’s up to Junior to save the day, and he’s got just the stick to do it!

Illustration: Thao Lam.

Thao Lam (Everybelly, The Line in the Sand, and The Paper Boat) uses simple line drawings and paper collage to build her story in comic book–style panels that exude a charming, handmade quality. The colour palette is soft, but the story itself, at times, can be loud with bangs and crashes and cries. While this isn’t a wordless picture book, the pictures do much of the talking, and young readers will enjoy discussing them and following the story from panel to panel. The cave people – both mother and father – are wonderfully hairy and hilariously confused by the baby who has appeared in their life. At first, they disapprove of his novel ways. It takes a very close call with the aforementioned mammoth to win them over to all the stick use and singing, but in the end, they realize that different can be good. It’s a simple story with a simple message, told with humour, and sometimes that’s exactly what a young child needs.