Afterward, Everything Was Different: A Tale from the Pleistocene

Afterward, Everything Was Different: A Tale from the Pleistocene, an almost wordless picture book, is illustrated in meticulously shaded black and white drawings which tell a story of prehistoric human life in the Pleistocene. The story opens with several double-page illustrations depicting a herd of giant bison travelling across an open prairie. In the background, a volcano is erupting while, in the foreground, a giant sloth eats insects from the trunk of a tall tree. The small band of humans, who emerge on the third double page spread, look tiny and insignificant in comparison to these giant beasts. The Homo Sapiens barely rise above the tall blades of grass as they creep towards the bison herd, spears in hand. When they move forward to attack their prey, one member of their small band is trampled by a terrifyingly ferocious bison. After this illustration, the title page finally appears, telling us that “afterward, everything was different.” What does this mean?

In subsequent pages, the small band of humans travels through the woods, past the seashore, and over snow-covered mountains in search of a cave in which to shelter for the winter. On the way, we gradually notice one small girl who observes everything around her. While the other members of her tribe are looking through the trees, she notices ominous footprints on the forest floor. While the rest of the clan are spearing fish, she sees a fierce sea monster approaching a man sleeping on the shore. While the others laboriously climb a hill, she stands on a rock to point out the approach of an ambush of ravenous saber-tooth tigers, giving her clan time to climb a nearby tree to safety.

The dramatic story is told in an easy-to-follow sequence and tells of a world full of dangers. As the tribe migrates, it loses several members to these dangers, and the young girl witnesses and remembers it all. When the group finally arrives in a cave, they build a fire, and most of the tribe goes off to hunt. However, for the first time, the young girl stays behind, thoughtfully considering the cave wall. Taking a piece of burning wood, she begins to draw in charcoal, recreating their adventures and showing how the tribe faced each peril. By the time the rest of the tribe returns to the cave, one wall is covered with images of mammoths, a stampeding herd of bison, a sea serpent with a man in its belly, and ferocious saber-tooth tigers. As the group sits around the fire, she recounts the story of their migration and how they survived the dangers along the way. This is the birth of storytelling. It makes everything different and changes human culture forever.

Afterward, Everything Was Different is a thoughtful picture book, one that vividly describes prehistoric life with all its risks and discomforts, and creates a plausible explanation for the development of one of the key facets of humanity: the ability to tell stories to record past events and anticipate and prevent danger. The dark and richly detailed drawings reward repeated readings. However, this would not be a good choice for an energetic group storytime but could be an excellent selection for individual sharing and discussion with a child or very small group of children.

The book concludes with two pages of text that describe the experiences of this particular tribe, the future of the young cave artist, and what we know more generally about the development of prehistoric cave drawings. The text is not essential to the story, however, as the illustrations themselves tell the story clearly and well. Afterward, Everything Was Different is a book that some children will enjoy exploring time and again, although the action is frequently quite frightening and could be disturbing for sensitive youngsters.