What Is a Child, When You Really Get Down to It?

Reviews the book, Encounters With Wild Children: Temptation and Disappointment in the Study of Human Nature by Adriana S. Benzaquén (see record 2006-12614-000). According to Littman, the subtitle of Adriana Benzaquén's book tells much of the story: The discovery of a strange child or adolescent in a jungle or woods with no evidence of other humans and, purportedly, sometimes in the company of animals, gives rise to the belief that the animals must have been responsible for the child's survival. Often those “foundlings” are dirty, smelly, disheveled, and barely, if at all, clothed; they tend to be fearful and often flee from their “captors” and act in ways that, in general, seem more appropriate to animals than humans. Such discoveries have led some to hope that by studying and rehabilitating them, these creatures will reveal the true nature, the basic nature, of humankind. The book's title includes wild children, not wild child or wolf child, for good reasons. The word encounters is equally well chosen and underlies many themes she takes up in the last few chapters. In her first few chapters, Benzaquén reviews a number of the well-known cases and the discussions they provoked among believers and nonbelievers. This book in having a historiographical focus, differs from many that have been written during recent decades, although the question of human nature remains foremost for all writers. Littman notes that Benzaquén's mastery of the fundamental issues about wild children is a pleasure to acknowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)