Into That Forest

by Louis Nowra

Overview

Two girls survive a terrible flood in the Tasmanian bush and are rescued by a pair of Tasmanian tigers who raise them in the wild. Their story of survival is remarkable, as they adapt to the life of the tiger, learning to hunt and to communicate without the use of human language. When they are discovered and returned to civilization, neither can adapt to being fully human after their extraordinary experience. Totally believable, their story will both shock and captivate readers as it explores the animal instincts that lie beneath our civilized veneer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781477817254
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	09/03/2013
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Louis Nowra is a critically acclaimed playwright and author. He was born in Melbourne and lives in Sydney with his wife, also a writer.

Editorial Reviews

A distinctive narrative voice opens this startling and mesmerizing tale, which is told as one long story with minimal breaks: “Me name be Hannah O’Brien and I be seventy-six years old.” Recalling her early life in the same Tasmanian house that now crumbles around her, Hannah describes the fateful day 70 years ago when her parents took her and another girl, Becky, for a picnic. A sudden storm, the drowning of Hannah’s parents, and the girls’ dramatic rescue by tigers lead to their gradual transformation. Over time, they lose their clothes and language, becoming den-dwelling, nocturnal, growling hunters (“Becky jumped up... and buried her face in the wallaby’s bloody insides”) with keen senses of sight, hearing, and smell, like their tiger rescuers, which they name Dave and Corinna. Australian playwright and novelist Nowra manages to make the initial disaster pale in comparison to the girls’ traumatic rescue four years later by Becky’s anguished father, their forced separation from the tiger parents they have grown to depend on, and their brutal reentry into civilization. A thrilling and heartbreaking tale of survival. Ages 12–up. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

In this gripping story, two young girls survive in the Tasmanian bush after Tasmanian tigers adopt them. When Hannah O'Brien's 6, her parents take her and her friend Becky on a river picnic, where their boat is caught in a flash flood. Hannah's parents drown, and the girls are washed ashore and rescued by a female tiger. Sensing the animal will not harm them, Hannah convinces Becky to follow the tiger to her cave, where her mate also accepts them. Viewing the tigers as "gentle dogs," Hannah quickly becomes "one of them." Initially horrified, Becky fears she will "become like an animal and stop being human," but eventually, she forgets language, abandons clothing, hunts at night, eats raw meat, walks on all fours and views the tigers as parents. Four years later, Becky's father finds the feral girls, who desperately fight to remain with their tiger family. Now 76, narrator Hannah tells her remarkable story, admitting "me language is bad cos I lost it and had to learn it again." Her plain, direct speech movingly describes their transformation from human to animal, triggering profound questions about what happens when "flesh wins over…heart." A shocking, disturbing, extraordinary survival story. (Fiction. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews

Strikingly original…vivid.” —The Bookseller

“I was completely spellbound.” —Lovereading

“A gripping exploration of survival, grief, and animal vs. human mindsets.” —The Bulletin for The Center for Children‘s Books

From the Publisher