A wildly heartfelt timeslip adventure that takes readers back to the Stone Age to explore themes of family, courage, loss and what it means to be human.

Charlie lives in modern times, but after hearing very bad news about a new sibling, Charlie flees to the forest and is transported in time to a Stone Age forest. This is an exciting narrative that will be lapped up by mature readers who are ready for a roller coaster of adrenaline and who can handle difficult themes. Most suitable for Upper KS2.

Stig of the Dump is a classic children’s novel about a young boy called Barney who encounters a strange cave-dwelling creature called Stig. Stig takes Barney on a series of fantastic adventures into prehistoric times.

This classic text is popular choice as a class reader or for a literacy unit. There is also an accompanying Read & Respond (click to see on Amazon) book to help teachers with planning.

There has been a gap in the market for Stone Age texts that children in Lower KS2 can access, especially independently. The Stolen Spear fills the gap well as it is easy to read and is ideal for newly confident readers or younger classes. Readers follow the main character’s journey to try and redeem himself and prove himself to others in his village. With further stories following in the series, readers have the opportunity to continue their journey with Wolf if they have enjoyed the story.

In the “Defenders” series, best-selling author Tom Palmer brings together his passions for football and history in haunting stories that are “super-readable” due to their accessible layout including a dyslexia-friendly font and tinted paper. In this story, a boy called Seth encounters visions of severed heads raised high on spikes surrounding an Iron Age hill fort. Seth discovers that the heads were a means of keeping intruders out of the hill fort in Iron Age times and must find a way to face the horrors of the past that echo through the ages.

This engaging picture book tells the story of a boy who falls down a hole to find himself back in time 15,000 years. He wakes in a prehistoric camp and finds out about life in a Stone Age village.

Stone Age Boy is a hugely popular book with lower KS2 classes and helps to encourage children to engage with how life might have been different during Stone Age times. Extra facts and information are peppered throughout. There is also an accompanying 2-week English unit available from KS2History.

A story set in the Stone Age that explores how the first drawing could have come to be, based on real discoveries made in the Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc in France, which contains some of the oldest known cave drawings made 30,000 years ago. A free educator’s guide is also available.

A whimsical and quirky picture book doubling as an instruction manual for the ‘mammoth’ task of washing this prehistoric beast. This is a humorous and creative text and a brilliant way into instruction writing. There is an accompanying 2-week English unit from KS2History.

The Secrets of Stonehenge is a fascinating information text full of images, questions and captions that probe deeply into the mysteries of Stonehenge. This engaging non-fiction text is easy to understand, visually appealing and bursting with interesting facts and theories about the mysteries of Stonehenge.

Marcia Williams embraces the Stone Age topic with her distinctive comic-book style. This informative text covers a range of sub-topics including prehistoric animals, hunter-gathers and Stone Age tools. This is a book with a high level of visual appeal and is particularly popular for engaging reluctant readers.

An accessible information text designed especially for the National Curriculum, this is a text pitched for teachers and pupils of lower KS2. Taking an investigative approach to history, The History Detective Investigates Stone Age to Iron Age examines key questions and pieces of evidence from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages in order to build a picture of life in prehistoric times.

Live Like a Hunter Gatherer is a fantastic guide to the Stone Age for Primary aged children. It is illustrated throughout in a colourful, appealing way and includes photographs of prehistoric evidence and artefacts. The language is accessible and the tone is appealing to KS2. There are many opportunities in the book for children to make links between life in the stone age and life today- allowing them to put things into context and understand how the achievements of the Stone Age society influence the way that we now live. For example, we all know that fire allowed people to stay up later, ward off predators and cook food, but did you know that the reduction in the need to chew cooked meat fewer times than raw meat meant that people had more time to chat which caused a surge in language development?

A section which particularly appealed was the myth-busting page. This allows children’s preconceptions to be challenged as they explore the subject and build a revised mental picture of life in the Stone Age. Spread throughout the book are instructions to enable the reader to share some of the experiences of the hunter-gatherers, including full-size shelter building, making a fat lamp and brushing your teeth with a willow twig. This book provides an excellent teaching resource: not only for learning about the Stone Age but also as scaffolding for writing in the form of the section ’24 Hours as a Hunter Gatherer’ or a plentiful provider of inspiration for forest school or outdoor learning.