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I bought the first three books in the Earth's Children Series in a paperback set still wrapped in plastic from a garage sale in my neighborhood when I was 9.  I finished all three books during our Christmas trip to Virginia, mostly in the van on the way there and back.

These books raised me in a way my parents couldn't have if they'd tried.  In The Clan of the Cave Bear I suffered and celebrated with Ayla from the loss she suffered at 5 until she was forced to leave her newfound home at 14.  I identified with Ayla's suffering and admired her strength, and unconsciously modeled myself after her.  I doubt Jean M. Auel knows that it's her fault that I'm addicted to beef jerky and sunflower seeds.

This book also first sparked my interest in Anthropology (though I didn't learn that word until my teens) and in Native American culture.  Neanderthals became a real people to me to such a degree that when I took a class on them I found myself internally arguing with one teacher about the lives of our Ice Age cousins.

The Valley of Horses introduced even more cultures and different ways of looking at the world.  It introduced our people as ones who honored women and believed in the Mother as their primary diety.  The first book taught me that sex was as natural as life and death; this book taught me that pleasure was just as natural.  It also formed my concept of how a man should treat and care about a woman.

The Mammoth Hunters is still my favorite.  I fell in love with the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi.  This book introduced a concept of family to me that I want to someday realize in my own life.

I had to wait ten years for The Plains of Passage, eagerly searching first for this every time I entered a book store.  This is the most action-packed book, with Ayla's and Jondalar's relationship at it's strongest.  During the year-long journey from the Mamutoi back to Jondalar's people, Ayla's strongest weapons were her confidence in herself and the love she shared and inspired in others.

I was so excited when The Shelters of Stone first came out, after waiting nearly another decade.  BF1 bought it for me, I think for my birthday, or some gift-giving holiday.  I started reading it immediately and was dismayed to find that it took me three days to finish.  I read so much faster when I was a kid.  It was extremely rewarding to finally enter Jondalar's world and meet his mother.  Ayla finally has her second child, and by the end of the book, she promises to finally explore an aspect of herself that she's feared from the beginning when Creb opened that path for her.