A IS FOR AARRGH!

PLB 0-06-023394-X Here’s some caveman satire from Brooke (A Brush with Magic, 1993, etc.), who focuses on young Mog; his invention of the Word revolutionizes the lives of his parents, Brog and Pog, and everyone else in the club-wielding tribe. It also gives glib, venal Drog a weapon. Although Mog finds a fascinating companion in a wandering young woman dubbed Teller for her ability to transform his words into stories, he still feels under-appreciated, and departs in a huff, leaving Drog free to convert the Tribe to an economy based on turtle shells (“greenbacks”) and to invent wealth, debt, politics, jails, and organized religion. In time, Mog and Teller return to cut Drog down to size, helped by a well-timed eclipse and a saber-toothed tiger with the heart of a pussycat; Mog invents the alphabet, and Teller, the limerick. Brooke’s earnest sermons on the power of words and the importance of using them wisely aren’t nearly as clever or moving as Andrew Clements’s in Frindle (1996), but children may be amused by both the blunt social commentary, and the antic Tribe, who make the Flintstones look like geniuses. (Fiction. 10-13)