Children of the wild

by John R. Burger

A collection of true stories and legends about children who were raised by animals.

125 pages, Unbound

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Children of The Wild by John R. Burger and Lewis Gardner explores the idea of feral children throughout history. The authors share many well-known stories of wild children such as wolf girls, Kamala and Amala, and Kaspar Hauser, who was wild in nature. However, the authors also inform readers that they are skeptical as to whether or not the stories can be taken as entirely truthful. Beyond just sharing what is believed to be true about each of the wild children, they also share the facts that have been found that discount the stories. Burger and Gardner explain that it is extremely hard to know what is fact and what is fiction when it comes to wild children because the children usually cannot talk or will never learn to talk. Because of this no one knows if they were really raised by wolves in the wild or if they were just lost and had to rely on animalistic instincts in order to survive. Many of these feral children are believed to be severely handicapped, possibly Autistic. This topic is controversial amongst scholars and this book only gives readers a small taste of the subject.
The authors have created a reliable source of information on the topic of wild children. The book is unbiased because it shares all the known information and research that has been done on each child, explaining the debates that have occurred as to the truth of each of these stories. The book is also credible because it includes real, primary photographs of the wild children. The book is organized into well thought-out chapters that make the stories all fit together underneath the larger category of wild children and very easy to understand for readers.
However, I would not recommend this book. It left me with a lot more questions than it answered. It only barely began to explore this topic, which is understandable for a middle-school level book, but is still disappointing. I would have loved if the authors explained more about studies that have been done on children that are said to be wild and analyzed their nature in comparison to humans that aren’t wild. This is such an interesting topic and I feel as if the authors failed to fully expand and explain the information that is available on it. The book did spark my interest on feral children, though, and has made me want to learn more about this topic- which could definitely have been the authors’ goal for the short novel.