Book Report / 163literary analysis of a novel. The same novel serves as the subject of the book report, the
book review, and the literary analysis.]
SAMPLE foR SoCIAL SCIENCES
In a sociology class, students were asked to read and report on books, either fiction
or nonfiction, that examine cultural habits, particularly as those habits can create
prejudices. Note that some introductory parts of the book report for social sciences
remain the same as that for English. At the same time, note how the book report is
refocused in order to be appropriate for the different curricular content.
Prehistoric Prejudice
The Valley of the Horses is a historical novel that fictionalizes the beginning of civilization in the
Asian area north of the Beran Sea, an area in which many anthropologists locate the begin-
nings of civilization. Like two of Jean M. Auel’s other books, The Clan of the Cave Bear and
The Mammoth Hunters, this one gets its foundation from archaeological research supporting
the evolution of man. The reader follows Ayla, a child of the Others who has been reared by the
Clan of the Cave Bear, as she meets Jondalar, a man of the Others. The Clan characterizes
the end of the Neanderthal people, and the Others characterizes the beginning of the Cro-
Magnon people. Set 25,000 years ago near the end of the Ice Age, the book clarifies the differ-
ences between the two peoples.
Ayla faces a lonely struggle for survival after her death curse by the Clan. To solve basic sur-
vival problems, she must use logic: Alone, how can she kill, butcher, and process an animal
large enough to feed her through the severe winter; alone, how can she provide clothing,
cooking utensils, sleeping skins, and shelter for protection; alone, how can she protect herself
from the dangers around her? Her training as a medicine woman and her knowledge of hunt-
ing, coupled with the large brain characteristic of the Others, allow her to succeed. Also as a
result of her background, she saves Jondalar’s life after a lion mauls him and kills his traveling-
companion brother. Jondalar is the first of the Others that Ayla has seen. After Ayla’s medicinal
powers help Jondalar regain his health, the two of them suffer from their inability to understand
each other’s customs. Jondalar finally teaches her to speak, however, and they establish a
strong bond, sharing their creative ideas to reach solutions for both the physical and mental
problems they face as a team.
It is the couple’s inability to understand each other’s customs that creates the conflict in the
last half of the book. Jondalar, one of the Others who looks down on the Clan as animals, is
outraged when he finds that Ayla, obviously also one of the Others, has lived with the Clan
and has even had a child by one of them. His outrage stems from his background. As a youth,
he had shared in whispered conversations and rude jokes about the Flathead females, as the
Others referred to the Clan women. “You know the one about the old man who was so blind, he
caught a flathead female and thought it was a woman....” Flatheads were to be feared and ter-
ritory was to be protected from them. As one stocky leader suggested, “Maybe we should get
up a flathead hunting party and clean the vermin out.” Jondalar knew that Flatheads could walk