Grunt! the Primative Cave Boy

Where Bush's James in the House of Aunt Prudence concerned a mannerly modern lad, this meticulously watercolored volume imagines a buckskin-wearing youth of a much earlier era. Grunt (``That wasn't cave talk-it was the boy's name'') is ``possibly the worst hunter in prehistoric Europe.'' Luckily, he has a magical talent: his sketches of animals attract real mammoths, woolly rhinos and bison. Dynamic spreads, heavy on the earth tones, show the results-dust flies as gleeful hunters pursue galloping Irish elk, ibexes, wild horses and other edibles. Grunt's appreciative fellow tribesmen appoint him chief and encourge him to keep drawing, despite Grunt's protests that they have enough food. Soon only the oxen are left-but, to Grunt's delight, the people use the oxen to start ``the very first farm in France.'' Marvelously detailed illustrations of extinct creatures contrast with the troll-like cave people, shown with exaggerated hands, feet, shaggy hair and wild expressions (and is that someone in glasses peeking from behind a remote rock in one spread?). Inspired by fact, this mostly fanciful tale is a stampede of fun. Ages 4-8. (Oct.)