The Ugly Little Boy

Background

The plot follows a Neanderthal child brought to the present by Stasis Inc., a research organization. The child cannot leave his immediate area due to energy loss and time paradoxes, so he is kept in a Stasis module. Nurse Edith Fellowes is hired to care for him; initially repelled, she grows to love him, names him Timmie, and fights to protect him when the organization decides to return him to his own time to make room for a new project involving a medieval peasant. Edith ultimately disrupts the Stasis module and returns to the past with Timmie.

In 1977, the story was adapted into a 26-minute Canadian telefilm directed by and starring Barry Morse, with Kate Reid as Nurse Fellowes and Guy Big as the boy. The film was praised for its fidelity to the story and was named to the ALA Notable Children's Films list in 1977.

The 1992 novelization by Robert Silverberg expands the story by introducing Timmie's Neanderthal tribe, depicted as a sophisticated society, and a children's advocacy group. The novel merges the two storylines when Edith's arrival in the past coincides with a confrontation between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, defusing conflict and suggesting possible coexistence or interbreeding.