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Library Journal
Reviewed on February 17, 2011
Nicholas Dane is not so much a bad boy as a good boy in rotten circumstances. Skipping school one day, he returns home to find that his (otherwise loving) mother has died of a heroin overdose. Lacking close kin, he is sent to Meadow Hill, a boys' home in Manchester. After enduring every kind of brutality-including r...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
on onFebruary 17, 2011 | Booksmack!
Nicholas Dane is not so much a bad boy as a good boy in rotten circumstances. Skipping school one day, he returns home to find that his (otherwise loving) mother has died of a heroin overdose. Lacking close kin, he is sent to Meadow Hill, a boys' home in Manchester. After enduring every kind of brutality-including r...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
School Library Journal
Reviewed on December 1, 2010
Gr 9 Up—Nicholas Dane is a typically rebellious 14-year-old, but he is loyal to the bone to those he cares about. When his mother dies from an overdose, he is sent to the worst home for boys in Manchester, England. Once there, he is tormented, beaten, and battered continuously by his peers and the staff. The abuse lessens when he is befriended by Tony Creal, one of the heads of the Home. Unfortunately, Mr. Creal is a master manipulator and has a long history of sexually preying on his charges. During this time, efforts to find some family for the boy turn...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Horn Book Magazine
Reviewed on January 1, 2011
The columns of Manchester's Meadow Hill Assessment Centre for wayward boys should carry a sign: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." When fourteen-year-old Nicholas Dane arrives after his single, going-straight mother dies of a heroin overdose and no immediate family exists to harbor him, he soon learns he has lost his past and his future, his hopes, ambitions, and dreams. A drugged-up headmaster, a ped...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Horn Book Guide
Reviewed on January 1, 2010
Fourteen-year-old Nicholas Dane arrives at a school for wayward boys after his mother dies of a heroin overdose. A drugged-up headmaster,...Log In or Sign Up to Read More