Feral children - children brought up by animals or without human contact - are a subject of enduring fascination. In an engaging and provocative study, Michael Newton looks at some of the most infamous cases; including Genie, the girl kept in a single room in New York; a boy brought up in a hen house in Northern Ireland; Kamala and Amala, two girls brought up by wolves in the Imperial India of the 1920s; and the Moscow boy found living among a pack of wild dogs.
By examining the lives of both the children and the adults - who "rescued" them, looked after them, educated or abused them, Newton raises some unsettling questions about out attitudes to children and to society. How can we explain the mixture of disgust and envy that such children can provoke? What is the cost of trying to reintegrate these children, and what can they tech us about our notions of education and civilisation?
