THE WILD VALLEY

by David Severn ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1963

There is no denying that Mr. Severn knows how to put together an attention getting story-- but this one is a puzzlement. Abandoning the world of crooks and gypsies that have peopled his past efforts (the last reported in the Bulletin was Crasy Castle in 1952) the author here drifts back and forth between reality and fantasy. In the misty recesses of a forest, Philippa, an odd child of nine, meets a fox-boy, a boy who is more like foxes than like his human forebears. Philippa no longer desires the companionship of children; she grows to love Foxy-boy, and wants only to be with him. An almost-romance develops between human child and animal-child, and in the end, Philippa draws her strange private world into a more real one when Foxy-boy chooses to live under a roof with her instead of in a rocky den with his ""brethren"". With a wealth of stories and legends that involve children raised by wild animals to compare it with, the fact remains that two readings here produced the same reaction-- Foxy-boy compels the reader fascination that A.L. Gesell's 1941 account of Kamala, the wolf girl, in his Wolf Child and Human Child does. But, that is adult reaction. Guessing what a juvenile reader would make of the invented situation is another matter entirely. This is an English import and their well known concern with animals may have prepared the English juvenile audience to accept the peculiar story. Well written and unique reading (most assuredly an understatement).

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1963

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963

Categories: FICTION