THIS ORQ. (HE SAY "UGH!")

Even in prehistoric times, a pet is a boy's best friend and a bully, his worst enemy.

"This Orq. He cave boy," begins the story, told in the broken sentence snippets of B-movies about prehistoric times. A caramel-colored woolly mammoth named Woma is his constant companion; they stack turtles together like blocks. Orq is kind of a runt next to the community bully, Dorq, who never misses a chance to display his superior strength. "Orq catch lunch. Dorq eat lunch." As Orq has Woma, Dorq has a big, gray Tasmanian devil–like pet called Caba, as mean as he is ugly. This duo taunts Orq and Woma at every turn. They even destroy Orq's turtle fort. One day, when they're hunting, Woma and Orq find a big beetle, a large lizard, a tremendous turtle, and...Dorq and Caba. Orq and Woma run fast but not fast enough. Caba throws a giant egg onto Woma's head, and Orq sees red. In his rage, he grabs two rocks and pounds them repeatedly. The sparks from this action ignite a nearby pile of sticks. Orq has inadvertently invented fire! He also scares away Dorq and Caba. Best of all, Orq becomes everybody's hero. There's abundant drollery in both Elliott's terse text and Nichols' mischievous pictures. As a bonus, there's a count-the-turtles challenge.

Wacky and well-tuned to the preschool sense of humor.