Pigeon English

"Pigeon English is a triumph." -- Emma Donoghue, author of Room

Shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize and the 2011 Guardian First Book Award

Eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku is the second best runner in the whole of Year 7. Harri races through his new life in England in his Adidas trainers - blissfully unaware of the threats around him. With equal fascination for the local gang - the Dell Farm Crew - and the pigeon who visits his balcony, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of his new home: watching, listening, and learning the tricks of inner-city survival. But when a boy is knifed to death, Harri starts a murder investigation of his own and endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to keep them safe.

A story of innocence and experience, hope and harsh reality, Pigeon English is a superb portrayal of a boy balancing on the edge of manhood and of the forces around him that try to shape who he becomes.