The Cave

By Victor Kelleher

Cover and internal illustrations by Lorena Carrington

ISBN 9780645378863

280 pages, RRP $19.99

Trim size: 190×128 mm

Category: Upper middle-grade fiction

Published April 2024 by Eagle Books, an imprint of Christmas Press

About the book:

Irian, Ulana and their Clan have made the cave their home ever since they used fire to drive off the Beast – a sabre-toothed tiger that had been preying on them. Protected by an ongoing fire at the cave mouth, they continue to keep the Beast at bay… until one fateful night when the fire goes out! What happens next shatters the Clan and leaves Ulana badly injured and Irian too traumatised even to speak.

 Alone and adrift in their dangerous prehistoric world, they have little hope of survival. What saves them is a chance meeting with a prickly old woman called Trug. Grudgingly, she takes them on a strange, unexpected journey of discovery, flinging them into the many wonders and hard realities of ancient times.

And that hazardous journey will eventually lead them full circle:  back to the challenge of the cave, and the enduring reality of the Beast….

 An exciting story set in a richly-recreated Paleolithic past, this novel for middle-grade readers is both an extraordinary adventure and a moving exploration of loss, survival and courage.

About the author:

With many novels to his credit, Victor Kelleher has written successfully for both adults and for young people. Formerly an associate professor of English, he has long since devoted himself full-time to fiction. He is a past winner of the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book of the Year Award, has twice received the CBCA Honour Award, and has either won or been short-listed for many other such prizes, including the Science Fiction Achievement Award and a short-listing for the Carnegie Medal. Wanderer, like much of his fiction, reflects his deep concern for the natural world. He currently lives in Tasmania with his artist wife.

Victor’s previous novel with Eagle Books, Wanderer(2022) was shortlisted for the 2023 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.