Perfect Picture Book Friday/ The Secret Cave – Discovering Lascaux

Image of a horse from the Lascaux caves. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hi Friends!

Another wonderful PPBF day! How are you all? Let’s start OK?

Title: Secret Cave – Discovering Lascaux

Author/ Illustrator: Emily Arnold McCully

Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux NY 2010/ Historical Biography

Themes: Historical Biography, Prehistoric France, Art, Cave paintings

Appropriate Age: 7-11 / grade two through grade six

What the Jacket says: In 1940, in the south of France, Jacques, Jojo, Simon, and Marcel decided to explore a deep hole in the ground, hoping for buried treasure. What they found inside was more precious then they could have dreamed. After squeezing through a narrow tunnel, the entered a cave, and the light their homemade lamps revealed the true treasure: walls covered  with images of cows, bulls, bison, horses, and reindeer, all  painted by early human thousands of years ago. The boys could have kept their find a secret, but instead they told experts on prehistoric art of their discovery, and they became guides to the cave and its spellbinding power.

This is a story of four daring boys who brought to the modern world the more than 2,000 paintings and engravings of Lascaux, perfectly preserved for nearly 17,000 years and now recognized as stunning examples of the very beginning of art.

First Three Sentences: Jacques Marsal’s teacher, Monsieur Leon Laval, collected prehistoric bones and stone tools from the countryside around where they lived in Montignac, France. Jacques was fascinated by them. He liked to imagine the first true humans, who  had lived when wooly Mammoths, bison, and reindeer roamed the craggy hills he knew so well.

Resources: Here’s a good teacher guide from the School  Library Journal. :

Here are archaeological sites to look at:

For a fantastic video to look at before reading look here:

Why I love it: Perfectly imagined, this true story is a hit of bravery and courage. The boys had to save the art from the Nazis during the invasion and other true stories in this picture book. How they tried to keep it secret is laughable when kids are involved.  And then when they told their teacher, he didn’t believe them at first. Luckily they had remembered to take photos. There is a map of the cave in the inside cover and shows how it was hidden for so long.

Please join other bloggers in Perfect Picture Book Friday over at Susanna Leonard Hill’s site to see other fun books. http://susannahill.blogspot.com/p/perfect-picture-books.html

For more links to Perfect Picture Books, a collection of bloggers who contribute at Susanna Leonard Hill’s site, click here.

XXOO

See You On Tuesday!

I’m still in Texas having a great time. This is why this  post  is so short due to little time for internet activities and posting. I’m actually quite proud of the fact that I have anything up at all. This due to the wonderful fact of  prescheduling while still in VA before traveling. Way to go, ME!

lascaux_painting (Photo credit: williamcromar)