The time-travelling caveman by Terry Pratchett

This is a mixed-up collection of weird, zany, funny stories by the amazing Terry Pratchett. Terry died in 2015 but these stories were published in newspapers, Bucks Free Press and Western Daily Press when he was a young 17-year-old. This is the last publication of his work, with some of his earliest stories. The book is thoughtfully dedicated to 17-year-old Terry himself.

There are 17 different short stories and they cover such crazy topics as “The Time-Travelling Caveman”, the title of this collection to “Lemonade on the Moon” about a group of children who have invented a machine to travel in space and must return to the moon to retrieve a discarded lemonade bottle before the first astronaut is to step onto the moon’s surface and discover its existence. As the reader, you can never really predict where any of the stories are going to take you and the wonderful illustrations by Mark Beech just add to the craziness. They do reflect their time and place with several references to Great Britain, but this does not detract from the stories in anyway. I particularly enjoyed “The Mark One Computer” story where an out-of-date computer finds a happy ending. A lot of the stories end abruptly and some are very short but they would make a great quick read aloud when you have 5 or 10 minutes to spare.

The appealing dust jacket, with the time travelling caveman cheerfully spinning in time, covers another wonderful vivid illustration of “Mr Trapcheese and his Ark”.  Mark Beech’s illustrations remind me of Quentin Blake, for they have a similar quirky, energetic feel about them.

This book would be a great read for students aged 7 to 11 years old. A book trailer can be found here.

Jane Moore