80s Sci Fi Book

[isabellivy]

I read this book in the late 80s. A spaceship lands on planet to explore and a finds a town. There are also small children that are feral that sneak in to get food. One child gets on spaceship when it takes off and they spend time teaching him to trust them and live in their culture. Turns out he is really smart, smart, fast, and string compared to the humans on spaceship. He ends up going to learn to be a pilot and an officer in their military. The child, now grown, goes back to his home planet to capture more feral children and to teach them to be a part of this culture and become pilots. They end up building a settlement on this planet and creating a community made up of these feral children that are now grown and having children of their own.