How would it be if you were a boy raised by dogs?

A recent arrival at the Library is the book “Dog boy” by Eva Hornung. This story begins in a deserted Moscow apartment building where four-year-old Romochka waits for Uncle to come home. Outside the snow is falling, but after a few days hunger drives Romochka outside. Overlooked by passers-by, he follows a street dog to her lair in a deserted basement at the edge of the city. There he joins four puppies suckling at their mother's teats. And so begins Romochka's life as a dog. (The Daily Telegraph Big Book Club)

This book was selected recently for the Daily Telegraph Big Book Club, and it has met with good reviews. Mary Phillip reviewed “Dog Boy” for the Brisbane newspaper, the Courier-Mail, on March 13, 2009, and this is part of what she had to say: “Romochka is the hero of this book – and what a hero. Barely able to speak, absolutely illiterate, unskilled in the intuitive ways of dogs, he nevertheless masters his environment. He manages to survive in both worlds, veering towards one or the other as circumstances demand. His love for his adopted family is immense, and he grows strong on their loyalty.

When humans intervene in Romochka's life it is hard not to view them with a critical eye. So immersed was I in the underworld of feral dogs and subways that I resented this intrusion, believing that humans would wreck the balance that these dogs had constructed to survive.
Vivid and visceral in its depiction of street life, this can be a confronting book, but it is so creatively imagined that readers will be rewarded.”

Christopher Bantick interviewed Hornung for the Courier-Mail (March 14, 2009) and quotes her as saying the following: “I've always been interested in outsiders. I am one in some ways myself. I'd been writing a few stories, really to see the limitation of my own imagination. By using the consciousness of a creature, you are making a loud statement about stepping outside the novel. I'd read a news story a while ago about a boy living with animals and I wanted to speculate as to what this may mean.”

The Library will be receiving most of the books featured in the Daily Telegraph Big Book Club from now on, and we hope our readers enjoy the books in this selection