In this ambitious quartet of novels for older children the award-winning author Peter Dickinson takes us back two hundred thousand years to witness the birth of the human race in Africa. The Kins are the first modern human beings and this epic tale starts with their forced exodus from their traditional homelands. Dickinson introduces us to Suth, Noli, Ko and Mana, all children of the Moonhawk Kin. As they roam the vast plains and valleys in search of new "Good Places" where they can peacefully live, so the children confront natural disaster, cruel hardships and brutal enemies, as well as their own developing hopes and fears. Dickinson intersperses his narrative with a series of magical interludes that are the mythical stories the Kin have made up to explain their world to themselves. But it is when the children take centre stage that these stories really come alive. Whether they are eating roasted leg of fox, travelling through the unknowable wilderness or exhibiting acts of essential human kindness in an entirely believable ancient landscape, once again Dickinson's cast of characters is capable of grabbing the reader's imagination and tweaking the heartstrings. --Nick Wroe