“You actually meant The Savage Girl , didn’t you?” No, just accept the eye-catching inversion. I believe it’s a meaningful choice for a title (“And here we have the girl who sometimes goes by the name of Savage.”), undeniably one of the reasons I picked up the book in the first place. Don’t misinterpret the word “savage”. This may easily translate as a pure desire to hold onto a wild freedom. Gather round now, you don’t easily discover a tomboy whose statements come off as a stumbling, yet adorable mixture of English and Shona (finished off with a comforting “Ja?”), do you? Will Silver is the African Pippi Longstockings who has lived all her life in Zimbabwe with her father, William Silver, his employer, Captain Browne, and her best friend, Simon. The first few pages deliver a light-hearted introduction, meant to offer an insight into Will’s colorful and carefree life. The radiant wilderness is soon replaced by the heart-breaking death of Will’s father and the arrival of a wealthy s