In Social Studies, grade 9, students will be reading the book Wild Children by Felice Holman. It is the story of the orphaned children after the catastrophic famine and upheaval of the Russian Revolution. Millions of children were left orphaned by the disaster. This is their story. Here is the quote from the New York Times in 1932.
Russia's experience with her vagabond youth should prove a warning to us. The shelterless, or bezprizorni, as they were called, came into being after the overthrow of the Russian monarchy in 1917 and increased so rapidly that they were estimated in a few years' time to number from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 boys and girls. This army of children, many of them as young as 10 years, terrorized whole villages and cities and became known for their murders, robberies and other acts of violence. The "wild children of Russia" the press termed them.... - Newton D. Baker The New York Times, December 11, 1932
