looking for a childrens book about a boy who can get into animals minds. Can’t control them , but know what they feel and think. He helps a local vet, figure out what’s wrong with various animals. Ultimately the boy gets killed while in the “mind” of a horse, and realizes he can go to other animals, as book ends with him going into a eagle and soaring away. I thought the name was something like “the boy who talks to animals” or something along those lines, but come up empty when I search. Can anybody out there help me figure this one out?
Stump the Bookseller
New format, same book stumper solving.
I remember someone else solving this on the old stumpers page. They said it was SONG OF THE WILD by Allen W. Eckert.
This is ‘The Song of the Wild’ by Allen W. Eckert (1980).
“The dramatic story of a lonely and misunderstood boy who has an exhilarating relationship with animals and nature, Song of the Wild is a book for all ages.
Twelve-year-old Caleb Erikson, who was born with a strange and wonderful talent that lets him take his mind inside any living creature he sees, sharing everything it experiences. With his special gift he can soar into the sky within a red-winged blackbird, run freely inside the horses he loves, or share the experiences of a great old tree as it undergoes the violence of a storm.
One remarkable summer, into Caleb’s life comes Dr. Colin Patrick, a warmhearted veterinarian with a rare sensitivity for animals and those who understands them; a man not so skeptical as others of Caleb’s amazing ability.”
And from another reviewer: “Twelve-year-old Caleb Erikson’s parents and teachers misunderstand him. His peers think he’s weird. And no wonder. After all, it’s hard to explain that when you’re standing around “with your mouth open and your eyes blank,” you’re really leaving your body and entering the consciousness of animals and plants. Yes, indeed: Caleb inhabits a moth, mates, and is snapped up by an owl; he also becomes at one with an oak tree, a minnow, a crayfish, a dragonfly, a rabbit, and (in school) a trio of flies fed to a Venus flytrap. He experiences how the creatures eat, walk, mate, moult, metamorphose, etc. But Caleb can’t quite explain his wonderful world of feeler-and-claw to his parents. And his understanding best friend, for the best of reasons, blats out Caleb’s secret–and the class gleefully jeers. Caleb only finds happiness, in fact, summering at a horse farm–where he helps veterinarian Dr. Patrick by “getting inside” the horses and feeling where it hurts. So Caleb tells all to Dr. P. . . . and Dr. P. believes. But then, alas, Caleb is killed in an accident, while out of body and into a horse. “If you’re in there,” pleads Dr. Patrick, “make him cock an ear.” Will terrified Caleb be forever in-horse, as it were? Worry not. A flock of wild geese wings by, and hurrah! Soon Caleb is honking joyously with the rest, on to his true destiny.”
“Song of the Wild” by Allen Eckert.
Philip Birdsong’s ESP ? But I don’t remember that ending. It was a funbook – there was a poodle that was vain, and wanted the boy to send images of the poodle on its pillow all the time.
That sounds exactly like the book. Thank you all for the help. I have ordered a paperback copy from amazon, and I am thinking this is solved. It funny how you remember something a certain way, i.e. the title of the book, but it’s completely different. -Lisa
Lisa, can you let us know which title solved your query?