Caveboy Crush

Neander the caveboy spots a short, hairy, beautiful girl with an arrow strung taut in her bow while he fishes for giant, primitive fish, and he’s immediately smitten. Obviously, when she looks his way he reacts by jumping into the lake. Neander groans and grins all the way home where his parents diagnose his strange new symptoms—it’s a “CRUSH!” Neander crushes things for the prehistoric beauty, Neanne, to show how he feels, but he only ends up scaring her. He knows his next display must be “mega extra super grander,” so he chisels a sculpture of Neanne out of ice. The story appropriately ends as Neanne crushes the sculpture, reciprocating her feelings for Neander. Ferry’s flowing text is filled with mirroring diction—”he picked and plucked and plucked and picked”—and spotted with personality that volumizes the limited speech from the cave dwelling characters and adds charm to the story, with clever lines like “Neander turned six shades of sunset” and “the Island of Icy Ice.” Keufler’s illustrations fit the tale perfectly, bringing in humorous and clever details like giant mammoth butterflies and bees, cave paintings, and Neanne’s bone hair accessory. Caveboy Crush flaunts originality and clever details with its prehistoric twist on the classic and relatable story of a childhood crush.