Dog Boy

by Eva Hornung

Book Overview

A vivid, riveting novel about an abandoned boy who takes up with a pack of feral dogs Two million children roam the streets in late twentieth-century Moscow. A four-year-old boy named Romochka, abandoned by his mother and uncle, is left to fend for himself. Curious, he follows a stray dog to its home in an abandoned church cellar on the city's outskirts. Romochka makes himself at home with Mamochka, the mother of the pack, and six other dogs as he slowly abandons his human attributes to survive two fiercely cold winters. Able to pass as either boy or dog, Romochka develops his own moral code. As the pack starts to prey on people for food with Romochka's help, he attracts the attention of local police and scientists. His future, and the pack's, will depend on his ability to remain free, but the outside world begins to close in on him as the novel reaches its gripping conclusion. In this taut and emotionally convincing narrative, Eva Hornung explores universal themes of the human condition: the importance of home, what it means to belong to a family, the consequences of exclusion, and what our animal nature can teach us about survival.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670021490
• ISBN13: 9780670021499
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 293 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

DEEPLY MOVING GRIPPING STORY

If you have ever loved a dog and been fascinated by dog behavior, you will enjoy this book. It is both action-packed and emotionally wrenching--hard to put down. At the end, I was emotionally drained but also sad that the novel was at an end. This is a very compelling read.

What a wonderful book!

I REALLY enjoyed this! Based loosely on the story of Ivan Mishukov, a young boy who lived with a pack of feral street dogs, this fictionalized re-vamping was both a heartbreakingly beautiful and a disturbingly realistic book. Feral children fascinate so many people, as they raise so many questions about both humanity and the creatures that replace parents. While this topic is heavily covered in literature (_The Jungle Book_ being a famous example), many modern books (like Alice Hoffman's _Second Nature_ or Kristin Hannah's _Magic Hour_) are softened into more of a romance novel, whereas this book celebrates the grimmer (and certainly disgusting) realities. At times, this is a harsh, and troubling read, not for the faint of stomach, but the moments of pure love and beauty balance out the book, making it an enjoyable read. Painstakingly researched, this book fully addresses its topics and themes in, an at times, cold light. Brief (under 300 pages), but undeniably powerful, Hornung handled a tough subject. She is a talented writer and i am curious about her past works and any future books she may write. I will admit that I would have liked to see the story develop even more, but I was not in any way dissatisfied by the ending.

Dog Boy

The twin brothers Romulus and Remus, raised by a she-wolf, were the founders of Rome. Mowgli was the hero of Rudyard Kipling's `The Jungle Book`. Tarzan was "King of the Jungle." Stories of feral children raised by animals have a long tradition. We are fascinated by the freedom it promises, stories of survival, of man in a perfect Rousseauian natural state, but we are also repelled by the grotesque behavior and unsanitary conditions. Such as it is with Australian author Eva Hornung in `Dog Boy`, a realistic recreation of the true story of 4-year old Ivan Mishukov, who lived with a pack of wild dogs in Moscow for two years, surviving winters of -20 degrees with no heat or cooked food. Although a fictionalized treatment, it probably goes further at achieving the truth than journalism. We learn intimate details of living as a wild dog: the sense of existing in the moment from one meal to the next, of dangers from "Strangers" (foreign dogs outside the pack), marking territory, play, social hierarchies, mating and birthing behaviors, smell and memory. This is not a "talking animals" novel, it is not `Watership Down`, the dogs and people all act in recognizably realistic ways, it is not a fable like `Animal Farm`. By the novels close you have become like a dog, thinking and acting appropriately, the world of dogs opened. For that reason alone, it's a great book for dog owners or anyone wishing to better understand animal human relations. It also implicitly questions mans superiority over animals. A great read for anyone curious about feral children, the wild dogs of Moscow or animal/human relations.

wonderful

I read all books about dogs that I can find and this one knocked my socks off. Reality ,truth,grit,love,fear,;it is all here. I have no need to ever experiance a Russian winter as now I have lived one with this author's description of Moscow. It is a book that stays with you and is hard to put down...a history of the world of now.

A staggering work of heartbreaking genius

Hope Dave Eggers doesn't mind me borrowing his title for my review; it's just so apt. Dog Boy reads quickly -- I consumed it in a single six-hour stretch, since I couldn't put it down. Reminded me, in many ways, of Call of the Wild. Emotionally wrenching and exhilarating, this novel will stay with you long after you've finished it. Buy it, borrow it, get it and read it now. If you don't finish the final page with tears streaming down your cheeks and a sudden mad desire to adopt a pack of dogs, you and I didn't read the same book.