Ayla is an outsider among the clan. Found and adopted by the medicine woman of the clan during their migration, Ayla finds herself the target of an ambitious man hoping to become leader, training to be a medicine woman in her own right in hopes of earning some status within the caste, and challenging the set gender roles of her adopted culture.

I was impressed by Auel's research on flora and fauna. The first time I read this I was in seventh grade and stuck home convalescing from an injury. I had read everything I owned and found this in my mother's room. The home-study program that I was forced into because of a lack of wheelchair accessibility facilities at my middle school was impressed that I had not only read it but could speak on a variety of themes I found in it. They moved me to the senior English class.