Bio of Gary Crew, Author of Angel’s Gate

Dr Gary Crew, author of novels, short stories and picture books for older children and young adults began his writing career in 1985, when he was a high school teacher. His books are challenging and intriguing, often based on non-fiction. As well as writing fiction, Gary is a Associate Professor in Creative Writing, Children's and Adult Literature, at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland and editor of the After Dark series.

He lives with his wife Christine on several acres in the cool, high mountains of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland in Queensland, Australia. He enjoys gardening, reading, and playing with his dogs Ferris, Beulah, and Miss Wendy. In his spare time he has created an Australian Rainforest Garden around his home, filled with Australian palms. Gary loves to visit antique shops looking for curios and beautiful objects.

 
Gary Crew has been awarded the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the year four times: twice for Book of the Year for Young Adult Older Readers (Strange Objects in 1991 and Angel’s Gate in 1993) and twice for Picture Book of the Year with First Light in 1993 (illustrated by Peter Gouldthorpe) and The Watertower (illustrated by Steven Woolman) in 1994. Gary’s illustrated book, Memorial (with Shaun Tan) was awarded the Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour Book in 2000 and short listed for the Queensland Premier’s Awards. He has also won the Wilderness Society Award, the Whitley Award and the Aurealis Award for Speculative Fiction.

In the USA he has been twice short listed for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Fiction Award for Youth and the Hungry Minds Review American Children’s Book of distinction. In Europe he has twice been and twice the prestigious White Raven Award for his illustrated books. Among his many Australian awards is the Ned Kelly Prize for Crime Fiction, the New South Wales Premier’s Award and the Victorian Premier’s Award. He has been short listed for both the Queensland Premier’s and the Western Australian Premier’s awards for Fiction.

--from Goodread.com

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Interested in finding out more about feral children"?

http://listverse.com/2008/03/07/10-modern-cases-of-feral-children/

Take a look at this website for info on:

10 Modern Cases of Feral Children

The Syrian Gazelle Boy

Jean-Claude Auger, an anthropologist from the Basque country, was traveling alone across the Spanish Sahara (Rio de Oro) in 1960 when he met some Nemadi nomads, who told him about a wild child a day’s journey away. The next day, he followed the nomads’ directions. On the horizon he saw a naked child “galloping in gigantic bounds among a long cavalcade of white gazelles”. The boy walked on all fours, but occasionally assumed an upright gait, suggesting to Auger that he was abandoned or lost at about seven or eight months, having already learnt to stand. He habitually twitched his muscles, scalp, nose and ears, much like the rest of the herd, in response to the slightest noise. He would eat desert roots with his teeth, pucking his nostrils like the gazelles. He appeared to be herbivorous apart from the occasional agama lizard or worm when plant life was lacking. His teeth edges were level like those of a herbivorous animal. In 1966 an unsuccessful attempt was made to catch the boy in a net suspended from a helicopter; unlike most of the feral children of whom we have records, the gazelle boy was never removed from his wild companions.

Oxana Malaya

Oxana Malaya (Оксана Малая) (born November 1983) was found as an 8-year-old feral child in Ukraine in 1991, having lived most of her life in the company of dogs. She picked up a number of dog-like habits and found it difficult to master language. Oxana’s alcoholic parents were unable to care for her. They lived in an impoverished area where there were wild dogs roaming the streets. She lived in a dog kennel behind her house where she was cared for by dogs and learned their behaviours and mannerisms. She growled, barked and crouched like a wild dog, sniffed at her food before she ate it, and was found to have acquired extremely acute senses of hearing, smell, and sight.

Kamala and Amala

The most famous wolf-children are the two girls captured in October 1920 from a huge abandoned ant-hill squatted by wolves near Godamuri in the vicinity of Midnapore, west of Calcutta, by villagers under the direction of the Rev JAL Singh, an Anglican missionary. The mother wolf was shot. The girls were named Kamala and Amala, and were thought to be aged about eight and two. According to Singh, the girls had misshapen jaws, elongated canines, and eyes that shone in the dark with the peculiar blue glare of cats and dogs. Amala died the following year, but Kamala survived until 1929, by which time she had given up eating carrion, had learned to walk upright and spoke about 50 words.

This month’s book: Angel’s Gate by Gary Crew

I first read this book years ago and have never quite forgotten it, so when I was thinking about a book for this month I decided to read it again. What a surprise to find that not only do I still love it, I think I appreciate it even more now. Angel’s Gate is a mystery, but it’s one of those mysteries that’s more than just a mystery. There is a murder, but the real suspense involves the existence (or not?) of two only-partially-glimpsed wild children, and the dangerous situation they are in. After a man is found murdered, rumors start to surface of him having a child living with him. Some people also claim to have seen another figure under a tarp in the back of his truck, and it is speculated that maybe he had two children living with him out in the bush. Everyone is looking for them, some to help them, but someone (the murderer) may want to silence them. The book takes place in the hills of Jericho, Australia, where Kimmy is growing up in an old building that also houses his father’s office and clinic (his father is the town doctor, his mother the nurse). Because the building used to be a barracks for soldiers, there are bars on the basement windows where the old cells are. When the first child is caught, the police naturally bring her to the doctor’s office, and she is kept in one of the cells while Kimmy’s parents try to nurse her back to health and rehabilitate her. Kimmy befriends her and is frightened by her obvious fear whenever she hears boots scrunching on the gravel outside the windows –she whispers, “Mister.” Is Mister the killer? The story is complicated by the bad nature of one of the local policemen, Ben Cullen. Angel’s Gate gives a very detailed picture of life in a small town in Australia, and also paints a vivid picture of growing up in a family with a controlling father and an older sister who refuses to give in to him.