'This book ranks alongside PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA as one of the very few great contemporary novels about childhood' William Sutcliffe, Independent on Sunday 'Everything was going to be different this year' - Tess is nine years old and wants her new family to work out, even though her brother Jake is not so sure. THE WILD is a brilliant, clear-eyed evocation of the collision of families and step families, adult and childhood worlds.