Your Mother Was a Neanderthal – The Time Warp Trio

Author:  Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith

Genre:  Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction, Chapter Book

This is a great fantasy and modern science book with a lot of humor and some math.  The Time Warp Trio (Fred, Sam and Joe) travel forward and backwards in time using a book that Joe’s uncle had given him.  The trio decided to travel back to 40,000 B.C. to the caveman days.  They thought that modern tools and communications would make them look like they were magical and they would be kings in this time.  But what they didn’t plan for was that when they time traveled none of the things they wanted to use to be magical, including the book to get them back, did not go with them.  They landed in 40,000 B.C. with no clothes, only a hat and straw.  In their adventure they ran from what they thought was a dinosaur but turned out to be amazon women in disguise and a saber tooth tiger.  They also came across some cavemen as well.  The cavemen and women did not work together.  They ended up getting the men and women together by showing them how to use a fulcrum to move a heavy rock.  The leader of the cave women looked a lot like Joe’s mother.  The cave woman leader led them deep into a cave with drawings on the wall that helped them get back to their modern time.  Back in their own time, Joe’s mother let them know she was the one who gave the time travel book to her brother who gave it to Joe and that she knew all about the travels and that she was the cave women they had run into.

After reading aloud, I would use this book in connection to introducing multiplication and how it can be used in life.  All through the book, the trio made calculations and referred to math and Archimedes (the Greek mathematician).  They also calculated how many miles someone walks in 4 hours if they walk 2.5 miles per hour.  The trio were actually doing math homework when they decided to time travel.  I would have the class write a story about what era they would time travel to and how things would look to them there.  They would need to list how the clothes, food, tools, communication and transportation are in the period that traveled to.  They would draw a picture to share with the class about what time in the future or past they traveled to.