Bookverdict.com

Gr 4–6—Who was the boy found naked in the forest by French villagers in the late 1700s? How had he gotten the scars that lined his body? How old was he? While he appeared to be about 10 years old, he could not tell his own story, because he could not talk. In understated, atmospheric prose, Losure carefully relates the recorded observations of the "men of science" who examined and/or educated ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

The early-nineteenth-century feral child who inspired Truffaut's L'Enfant Sauvage as well as Mordicai Gerstein's YA novel Victor and picture book The Wild Boy (both rev. 11/98) here gets a scrupulously nonfictional account of what is known about his life. The boy was captured in January 1800 in southern France when he was around eleven or twelve. Later brought to Paris and to the attention of doctors and the French government, Victor (so named b...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

A well-researched true story that will fascinate readers, from the discovery that the wild boy didn’t notice cold to the attempts to teach him to speak and his success learning to spell out words. Mary Losure’s strong, clear narrative is beautifully and sensitively written, and she smoothly incorporates her own well-considered speculations as well as source quotes: “Dr. Itard wrote that he chose . . . the wild boy’s name because in French, the name Victor has an ‘oh’ sound in it . . . and ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More