Product Description

Ug and his parents live in the Stone Age. This means stone blankets, stone cold food, an even colder cave and, worst of all, hard stone trousers! Being an inquisitive boy, Ug suggests a series of modifications to improve the quality of family life. His ideas about heating, cooking, boats and balls that actually bounce meet a hostile reaction from his parents and friends. Even Ug himself is occasionally unsure of the practical purpose of his creations - his round stone that rolls down the hill is great, but what is it actually for? With the help of his father, who is slowly coming round to his son's way of thinking, Ug comes tantalisingly close to his ultimate garment goal, only to find that there are obstacles even a boy genius cannot overcome.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24883 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

The Observer, July 22, 2001
with his wry eye for detail and sense of narrative pace ...Briggs invests this little fantasy with great warmth...

The Bookseller, June 8, 2001
A sure fire winner… a wonderful combination of humour, wisdom and an appreciation of how humans respond to change.

The Sunday Times, 2nd September, 2001
...a wonderfully witty jeu d'esprit... a very funny and clever book... Ug is not the only genius; Briggs is one too.

Customer Reviews

Ug is a very sympathetic and funny book .
UG, sad, happy or funny? The beginning is fun and enjoyable but later, Ug the stone-age boy, becomes sad and depressed. He's far too ahead of his time for anyone to understand him. He thinks up all kinds of inventions that are commonly used today, for example, fire so that the food could be cooked, wooden boats and light, soft balls for tennis and football. He even thinks of making a wheel. Ug also believes in feelings and affection, like giving his mother a bunch of flowers, just because they are pretty. Sadly for Ug, she mistakes them for food and eats them!
Ug is always having good ideas but all the other stone age people, like his parents Dug and Dugs and his friend Ag, think he's mad. When he grows out of his trousers, his ambition is to have a pair of soft trousers made out of the skin of a woolly mammoth rather than wearing stone trousers, but no one knows how to make them. Ug's dad tries to be helpful but Ug's idea are too advanced.
Ug's story makes us think about how we've developed from the stone age. Raymond Briggs's includes lots of jokes about how ideas may look silly to people at one time but often happen much later on.