Mr Brouard's odyssey - Diana Winsor

When a ten year old girl finds a strange creature on a beach she takes it to her teacher. He identifies it as a horseshoe crab - a unique animal that has survived almost unaltered for hundreds of millions of years. The discovery marks the beginning of a relationship between them that spans half a century. Together they embark on a journey into the past. It leads them from the age of the dinosaurs to ancient Greece and a seashore in Cornwall. Gradually connections become clear: between an island in the Indian Ocean and the Altamira cave paintings; between Darwin's Origin of Species and Aesop's fables; between the building of a boat and the development of the human mind. As the journey of exploration unfolds, so questions arise. Did the first humans really walk out of Africa? If most of the earth is covered by sea, why is it ignored when we search for our past? Their shared obsession leads the two of them on a quest for the truth. The result is a new theory of the origins of mankind, coherent and comprehensive enough to question conventional wisdom - and a poignant story of our time.