The Wolf Girls: An Unsolved Mystery from History - Hardcover

Jane Yolen is an award-winning author who has written more than 380 books for children, including the bestseller How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? and the 1988 Caldecott Medal winner Owl Moon. She is known for her beautiful poetry, picture books, fairy tales, novels, and nonfiction, and has even been called “the Hans Christian Andersen of America” (Newsweek). She lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts. Visit her at JaneYolen.com.

Heidi Elizabet Yolen Stemple is Jane Yolen’s daughter and sometime writing partner. Together they wrote the Unsolved Mysteries from History series. Heidi lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts.

Roger Roth, Sr., has partnered with Dr. Hanby in his ministry and writing for many years. Together they oversee Mark Hanby Ministries/Fathers Heart Ministries, an internationally recognized teaching and resource center.

Gr 3-5-An unnamed narrator invites readers to investigate a historical mystery. In 1920, two sisters supposedly raised by wolves were taken to an orphanage in India. Joseph Singh, a missionary who cared for the girls after their discovery, offered varying stories as to how they came to be under his care. It's not only a mystery as to who the girls were, but also what the man's true motives were. Investigators are helped along throughout with explanations of such terms as "sal forest" and "bullock." Notes written on lined paper as if from a journal; the words and their definitions, which are set in small boxes; and text in large boxes are all superimposed on double-spread watercolor illustrations. The art serves to put the information offered in proper perspective. Evenhandedness is apparent throughout. The authors mention that scientists doubt the existence of feral children. It is suggested that individuals who seem as if they might be wild often have handicaps such as autism, deafness, or retardation. More telling, "Scientists have concluded that even a healthy child would not survive for long with only an animal mother." This seems to imply that Singh was at least an opportunist. Although the mystery is not solved, four possible explanations are appended, and readers are asked to form their own opinion. Tasty fodder for emerging detectives.

Anne Chapman Callaghan, Racine Public Library, WI

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