Wildhood

April 1, 2019

The coauthors of the New York Times best-selling Zoobiquity tie together adolescent humans and other animals by citing the four challenges they face: how to navigate hierarchy, court potential mates, feed themselves, and be safe. To do so, they chronicle four animals: Ursula, a king penguin; Shrink, a tops-in-the-crowd hyena; Salt, a ruling-mom humpback whale; and European wolf Slavc. How cool is this! With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2019
How adolescents across species learn to become grown-ups. There's a time in most parents' lives when they're tempted to throw their teenage children into the nearest well. So it is across the animal kingdom when puberty sets in and profound changes shape the adolescent being. Write Harvard evolutionary biologist Natterson-Horowitz and science journalist Bowers (co-authors: Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing, 2012), although puberty is thought of as a sexual transformation, it "exerts its hormonal effects on every organ system in the body," enlarging the heart, lungs, head, and other features and adding strength and power to the form. This allows a human runner to race at newfound speeds and affords the great white shark the wherewithal to bite something and mean business. Adulthood among all species is not confined to just this transformation but also requires the initiate to become part of the group. The authors focus closely on four quite distinct animals--a king penguin, a spotted hyena, a humpback whale, and a wolf--to examine the changes attendant in becoming an adolescent on the way to adulthood, with all its perils. As those who were once teenagers well know, it's a time fraught with danger, to which animal species have exhibited similar responses--the phenomenon of shoaling, for instance, a "fundamental, lifesaving skill set" that illustrates the adage of there being strength in numbers and, more to the point, in concerted action, whether for a group of reef fish or a squadron of fighter pilots. Sometimes such actions are automatic or nearly so, but many require an awareness of hierarchy: "Each individual has a place. And the social energy that goes into determining those positions is also what holds together the hierarchy." The authors steer clear of excesses of ethology or anthropomorphism, and they emphasize that maturity is not a goal but a process. A lucid, entertaining account of how creatures of many kinds learn to navigate the complex world that adulthood opens.

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Starred review from July 15, 2019
Human teens have much in common with their counterparts throughout the animal kingdom—and those commonalities are eye-opening as described in the latest from biologist Natterson-Horowitz and science journalist Bowers (coauthors of Zoobiquity). They reveal how a wide variety of species, fruit flies and pumas alike, must negotiate four competencies while entering adulthood: safety, socialization, sex, and self-reliance. Readers follow Ursula, a king penguin; Shrink, a hyena; Salt, a humpback whale; and Slavc, a wolf, as they deal with sex, friendship, and parents. Cultural references pepper the narrative (Katniss Everdeen is used as an example of youthful survival skills) and lighten the mood (while “ABBA and the Bee Gees were on the Billboard Hot 100..., a young whale found her first love”). Harsh reality also plays a role: as with humans, the teens of other species can and do put themselves in peril (a biologist relates a rite of passage among California sea otters, of entering the great white–inhabited “triangle of death” off the coast). But this work is ultimately reassuring—as in its message that “the joys, the tragedies, the passions” of adolescence are not senseless, but “make exquisite evolutionary sense”—and should appeal to anyone who’s ever raised an adolescent, human or otherwise. Agent: Tina Bennett, WME.

Starred review from August 1, 2019
The developmental years of adolescence seem unique to the human experience, rife with the awkwardness of puberty, conflicts with parents, drama between friends, and the push to find an identity away from home. Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers utilize years of research to illustrate how, in fact, adolescence is an experience shared across many species. This time between childhood and adulthood, which the authors call wildhood, has four core competencies: safety, status, sex, and self-reliance. Readers follow four animals' adolescence, each highlighting one of the challenges of wildhood. Ursula, a king penguin, must stay safe in the predator-filled waters of the Atlantic. Shrink, a spotted hyena, navigates how to live with others and climb the status hierarchy of his clan. Salt, a humpback whale, learns how to communicate sexually in order to find a mate each year. And, finally, Slavc, a wolf, ventures away from home to survive on his own. Thanks to the authors' research, teenagers can rest assured that they have a temporary membership in a planet-wide tribe of adolescents. An incredibly fascinating read, Wildhood illuminates what humans can learn from the animal world and how all species are more connected to one another than they may appear.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)