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Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children
 
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Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (Paperback)

by Michael Newton (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 284 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber; New edition edition (17 Feb 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0571214606
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571214600
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.4 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 53,649 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #21 in  Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Sociology > Family & Social Groups > Age Groups > Children

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Stories of abandoned children and those children supposedly raised by animals have long fascinated us, as the legend of Romulus and Remus makes clear. More recent stories also capture the imagination. The Wild Boy of Aveyron, caught running naked in woods in provincial France in 1800, has been the subject of biography and fiction and the attempt by the physician Jean Itard to educate the boy formed the basis for a memorable film by Truffaut. The appearance of Kaspar Hauser in the streets of early 19th-century Nuremberg, after a mysterious 16-year imprisonment in a dark and tiny cellar, evoked fantastic tales of a lost prince and rightful heir cruelly shut away. He too was the subject of a film--a visionary and visually inventive masterpiece by the German director Werner Herzog. Michael Newton's Savage Girls and Wild Boys: a History of Feral Children tells these stories and many more like them--wolf-children in 1920s India, a Russian boy living on the streets of Moscow and scavenging with a pack of wild dogs, a boy brought up by monkeys in Uganda. Much more than just a frisson-inducing account of the weird and the bizarre, Savage Girls and Wild Boys is an ambitious exploration of what these stories (and our fascination with them) tell us about the shifting boundary between nature and civilisation.--Nick Rennison --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


Review

'The stories Newton has to tell are spellbinding.' Mail on Sunday 'A collection of six, extraordinary individual histories, beautifully navigated.' Evening Standard
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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book about abandonment and survival, 26 Feb 2002
By R Hamblyn (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (Hardcover)
This is a beautifully written, moving account of 'feral' children - children who have, for one reason or another, been left to fend for themselves in the wild. Many of them, like modern-day Romuluses and Remuses, were discovered and cared for by animals. What is so good about the book is that the author does not simply tell these often terrible stories, but ponders the meanings that they hold for us now. Just as for the enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century, wild children offered a challenge to received ideas of civilisation, for Michael Newton, these stories of innocence lost and found offer rich insights into what it means to be human. This is a book that has to be read.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars I thought this book was incredibly moving and interesting., 17 April 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (Hardcover)
I didn't know what to expect from this book, but soon found myself absolutely gripped by each of the stories. They often work with the fluency of fiction, while obviously being based on well-researched documentary accounts.
This is a book that stays with you - that even subtly changes how you think about the world.
This book isn't a potboiler, or a psychiatric treatise - it's a powerfull account of what we feel about childhood, solitude, savagery, passion and our connection to nature.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Some fascinating and moving accounts, 22 Mar 2005
By Pablo (London) - See all my reviews
I bought this book because of a long-standing interest in the Kaspar Hauser case. Not only did I learn much that was new about Hauser but I was able to set his case in the context of a long history of 'feral' children before and since. Newton's book manages to avoid sensationalising his subject-matter, but his objectivity and breadth of contextualisation provide the reader with more than enough material to bring these stories alive. All this would be worthy enough, but what lifts the entire volume is the last case, that of Genie, kept in appalling conditions in a suburb of Los Angeles by her own overbearing father. Her life had been awful enough, but her subsequent treatment by self-seeking carers and an unfeeling bureaucracy shows how our attitudes to the rescue and re-education of these misfit kids have scarcely changed over the centuries. I finished this book better-informed about the subject and about humanity as a whole.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Boring and descriptive account of a fascinating subject
I was looking forward to reading this book as the subject itself is absolutely fascinating. Unfortunately I had to give up reading after the second chapter... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Liana

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written and researched historical review
Highly recommended to anyone interested in the historical timeline of "wild children". Pulling together as much information as concievably possible and putting them all into an... Read more
Published on 2 Sep 2006 by Bug Feathers

2.0 out of 5 stars Well written yet lacking
I actually gave up on this book after a while as I was expecting to learn how the children had come to be living wild, how they survived and what living wild is like,... Read more
Published on 7 Jul 2006 by Mr. R. W. Western

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant and moving book
Michael's Newton's book gives remarkably fresh insights into the cases of feral children, such as Genie whose story is well known to linguists. Read more
Published on 30 April 2005 by Lorna Gibb

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read
I enjoyed this book which taught me so much about many stories that I half remembered from years back. It's so well written that I kept reading late into the night. Read more
Published on 22 Mar 2005 by Alan

5.0 out of 5 stars A haunting and beautiful book
This is a wonderfully evocative and moving book about wild children. Newton not only delineates each of their histories with care and compassion but by doing so brings out a... Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2005 by Dr. Lorna Gibb

2.0 out of 5 stars Overwhelmed by literary references...........
If you're as fascinated by this subject as I am for all that it can tell us about human development, as well as for the human interest and pathos of the individual stories then... Read more
Published on 19 Feb 2004 by D C

5.0 out of 5 stars Comment
A reading of this book shows that children who were severely deprived of normal human contact during their early years, exhibit some of the aspects of behaviour also seen in some... Read more
Published on 28 Dec 2003 by A. Challoner Esq

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and shallow
I came to this book as a psychiatrist who has an interest in this field, and looking for a historical dimension to my clinical work. Read more
Published on 24 Feb 2002

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