Children of the Wolf by Jane Yolen
"Children of the Wolf" by Jane Yolen is a historical fiction novel that follows the story of feral children rescued from the Indian jungle in the 1920s. The narrative is presented through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy named Mohandas Jinnah, who reflects on significant events in his life while living at an orphanage. The plot begins with the capture of two wild girls, Kamala and Amala, who have been living with wolves, and details Mohandas’s struggle to teach them language and social norms.
The story highlights themes of friendship, responsibility, and the challenges of civilizing those who have lived outside human society. As Mohandas invests himself in Kamala’s upbringing, he grapples with feelings of pride and inadequacy, especially as he faces the darker motives of those around him. Tragedy strikes when Amala falls ill and dies, which profoundly affects Mohandas and his connection with Kamala. The novel explores the complexities of human relationships and the impact of societal expectations, making it a poignant entry in Yolen's body of work. It serves as a touchstone for her exploration of serious historical themes woven with elements of folklore and mythology.
Subject Terms
Children of the Wolf by Jane Yolen
First published: 1984
Subjects: Coming-of-age, emotions, friendship, and social issues
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Historical fiction, psychological realism, and social realism
Time of work: 1920
Recommended Ages: 13-15
Locale: An orphanage in India near Midnapore and the Morbhanj jungle
Principal Characters:
Mohandas Jinnah , a sensitive, intelligent, and introverted fourteen-year-old male orphanRama , slightly older, Mohandas’ charismatic and dashing best friendKamala , the older of the two wolf-girlsAmala , the younger wolf-girlThe Reverend Mr. Welles , the director of the orphanageMrs. Welles , his gentle, softspoken wifeIndira , a spiteful and mean boarder at the orphanageVeda , ,Krithi , andPreeti , other orphans at the school
Form and Content
In Children of the Wolf, Jane Yolen spins a tale of friendship and betrayal adapted from the diary of a missionary who rescued two feral children from the Indian jungle in 1920. She tells the story through the eyes of an older Mohandas Jinnah as he looks back on events that shaped his life as a fourteen-year-old boy at the orphanage.
Mohandas, the second oldest boy at the orphanage and a writer at heart, begins with the night that “unraveled all our lives”; the night before he, Rama, and the Reverend Mr. Welles leave to hunt the reported manush-bagha (ghost) of a neighboring village. Life is peaceful, the moon is full, and Mohandas envies the daring Rama, who has snuck out to enjoy a night on the town. All this swiftly changes. Mohandas will discover the need to speak up and take decisive action, but he will be too late.
Mohandas, Rama, Mr. Welles, and several villagers track and capture the manush-bagha, which is actually two wild girls, one about ten and the other three, who have been living with a mother wolf and her pups in an abandoned termite mound. The girls, dubbed Kamala and Amala, are brought to the orphanage, and Mohandas is charged with teaching them to speak and to walk upright. He works diligently to be worthy of the responsibilities that Mr. Welles has entrusted to him. The assignment is difficult; the wolf-girls roll in the dust on their arms and legs, eat raw meat, capture lizards, soil themselves, and howl at the moon. In addition, everyone else appears to have an ulterior motive in their desire to civilize them; Mohandas alone is altruistic. Amala, the younger girl, soon falls sick and dies of dysentery and worms. Mohandas resolves to prove himself with Kamala, even as he begins to question the rightness of the world around him.
When Kamala utters Mohandas’ name, he swells with pride over his accomplishment and trains her to walk upright. Mr. Welles comments that he is much like her brother, but in truth Mohandas does not take the initiative that an older brother might. Mr. Welles is sure that words are the magic to free Kamala from her animal nature, and for a while it appears that he is right. As Kamala increases her rudimentary language, she joins in activities at the orphanage, acquires a rag doll—her only possession—and engages Rama’s interest. Mohandas is no longer her central focus; he is crestfallen and withdraws into himself again. This is unfortunate, for the mean-spirited boarder Indira, chagrined at losing Rama’s attentions, abuses Kamala. Mohandas does not intervene until too late; Indira drives Kamala back into the darkened jungle. Mohandas finds her and brings her back, but things are never the same and Kamala does not speak again.
Critical Context
Children of the Wolf is a special touchstone in Jane Yolen’s prolific career. Already an acknowledged leader in picture books, fantasy, and literary folktale with more than seventy books published before 1984, Yolen made her serious debut into historical fiction with this book.
Its forerunner and Yolen’s first young adult novel, The Gift of Sarah Barker (1981), is a fictionalized story set in the nineteenth century about two Shakers who fall in love. Sarah and Abel must choose between their own love and banishment from their society. Yolen followed Children of the Wolf with The Devil’s Arithmetic (1988), a historically correct time-warp story of the Holocaust that concentrates on the importance of Hannah’s remembering. All Those Secrets of the World (1991) is an autobiographical picture story book about a summer on the Chesapeake when Michael, Steve, and Janie’s dad goes off to war. Letting Swift River Go (1992) shows how Sally lets go of the past and welcomes the changes brought to her rural Massachusetts town brought on by the new Quablin Reservoir. Encounter (1992) is the story of a young Taino boy’s premonition about Christopher Columbus that warns of the consequences of not respecting other’s rights in any encounter. In these novels, Yolen addresses serious, real issues in the collective past, interweaving in them motifs and themes from folklore and mythology.