“You cannot tame something so happily wild.”

 

In this beautiful picture book by Hawaiian artist Emily Hughes, we meet a little girl who has known nothing but nature from birth—she was taught to talk by birds, to eat by bears, and to play by foxes. She is unashamedly, irrefutably, irrepressibly wild. That is, until she is snared by some very strange animals that look oddly like her, but they don’t talk right, eat right, or play correctly. She’s puzzled by their behavior and their insistence on living in these strange concrete structures: there’s no green here, no animals, no trees, no rivers. Now she lives in the comfort of civilization. But will civilization get comfortable with her?

 

In her debut picture book, Hughes brings an uncanny humor to her painterly illustrations. Her work is awash with color, atmosphere, and a stunning visual splendor that will enchant children while indulging their wilder tendencies. Wild is a twenty-first-century answer to Maurice Sendak’s children’s classic—it has the same inventiveness, groundbreaking art, and unmissable quirkiness.

她是森林中的孩子──她跟鳥兒說話，跟熊找食物，跟狐狸玩耍。她的生活原始簡樸，卻充滿了歡笑……
可是人類硬要馴服野孩子──他們給她衣服鞋襪，書本玩具，美味食物。她的生活物質足，卻充滿了憤怒……

孩子天生快樂無憂，無拘無束，但隨著成長必須學習社會上的一些規範行為。爸媽作為孩子的啟蒙導師，應用何種方法、何種態度去啟蒙孩子呢？相信這本書會給你有益的啟示。

——中文簡介摘自新雅文化《野孩子》