"A" Is for Aarrgh!

by William J. Brooke

Two young cave dwellers set about creating words for the many things they encountered in their world, in a lively tale about the origination of language.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Middle Grade, Juvenile

249 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Rodeen Ramezanzadeh]

3.7

[Kathryn McCary]

Once Brooks gets beyond the Taffimai Metallumai-ish start to this story, it is interesting and amusing; but it is impossible to put all the sophomoric bashing-with-clubs-and-grunting humor out of one's mind while reading the more sophisticated humor with which he concludes. Too bad, because much of what the story has to say about the abuse of both language and power is worth reading.

[Rachel]

Hilarious and thought-provoking story of a little caveman community and how it discovered Language, Society, and all of their accompanying goods and ills "long before Once Upon a Time". William J. Brooke is an excellent author, and this is my favorite of his books.

[R.K. Goff]

A delightful read! My husband and I listened to this one together a while ago. We got to talking books tonight, and thought it was a crying shame that more people didn't know about this read.

Just funny. Just fun.

Be careful to note both the author and how he spells "AARRGH." Pick it up.

[Beth]

Review: https://hiplibrariansbookblog.com/200...

[Joe Faust]

Excellent comic novel about the origins of language.

[William Peng]

this is an interesting story that explains how some things we do came to be. this is a very good book.

[Philip]

Read this to the boys back in Taiwan (2004?), and we really enjoyed it. Well-written and exceedingly clever, the boys still remember it today and will make an occasional reference.

[Maggi Andersen]

Entertaining, but I wasn't too happy with the way it explained the birth of religion (as a clever trick to control people) toward the end of the book.

[Nathan]

One of my favorite books-on-tape from the Monrovia public library that I must have listened to at least 3 times.

[Kevin Baldizon]

Very cool book about the nature of language and the meaning we give to words.

[Ki-Lane]

cute story.