|
Pigeon English
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Pigeon English for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Simultaneously accurate and fantastical, this boy's love letter to the world made me laugh and tremble all the way through. Pigeon English is a triumph' Emma Donoghue, author of Room
'A powerful and impressive novel ... Kelman knows the world of boys - their language, their humour, their thoughts - and Harri's voice is dazzlingly authentic. Utterly convincing and deeply moving, this is a book that we should all read' Clare Morrall, author of The Man Who Disappeared
'Pigeon English is a book to fall in love with: a funny book, a true book, a shattering book ... If you loved Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time or Emma Donoghue's Man Booker-shortlisted Room, you'll love this book too' Erica Wagner, The Times
'One of the hardest things in fiction is to write from a child's point of view - Kelman does it brilliantly' Alex Clark, Guardian
'A powerful and impressive novel ... Kelman knows the world of boys - their language, their humour, their thoughts - and Harri's voice is dazzlingly authentic. Utterly convincing and deeply moving, this is a book that we should all read' Clare Morrall, author of The Man Who Disappeared
'Pigeon English is a book to fall in love with: a funny book, a true book, a shattering book ... If you loved Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time or Emma Donoghue's Man Booker-shortlisted Room, you'll love this book too' Erica Wagner, The Times
'One of the hardest things in fiction is to write from a child's point of view - Kelman does it brilliantly' Alex Clark, Guardian
Product Description
Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku lives on the ninth floor of a block of flats on an inner-city housing estate. The second best runner in the whole of Year 7, Harri races through his new life in his personalised trainers - the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen - blissfully unaware of the very real threat all 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 life in England: watching, listening, and learning the tricks of urban survival. But when a boy is knifed to death on the high street and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harri decides to start a murder investigation of his own. In doing so, he unwittingly endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to try and keep them safe. A story of innocence and experience, hope and harsh reality, Pigeon English is a spellbinding portrayal of a boy balancing on the edge of manhood and of the forces around him that try to shape the way he falls.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
63 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Narrative, Shame It Takes The Edge Off The Poignancy,
By
This review is from: Pigeon English (Paperback)
There is an underlying issue with `reviewing' a novel like `Pigeon English' and daring to critique it. It almost makes you wonder should you dare to because the subject matter is a delicate one, in the main it seems that Stephen Kelman took the story of school boy Damiloa Taylor's death and wrote a fictional response about/to it. `Pigeon English is told by eleven year old Harrison Opuku, a young man who is also an immigrant from Ghana now living on one of the tower block council estates in London. This is an area of street gangs, poverty and violence; in fact the novel opens with the death of a school boy who Harrison sort of knew.Writing in a child's narrative has become something of trend in modern contemporary writing, long before `Room' we had `What Was Lost' (and indeed the theme of child detective comes up in this book as Harrison and his best friend decide to hunt the killer), it is also a hard act to balance when on a tough subject. Can you hold the reader's belief? Does the narrative ring true? Does the simplicity of the voice dilute the events that are happening? Sadly, for me at least, whilst I loved Harrison's view on life, which often made me laugh out loud, it took away the impact of the novel. When you are spending time in the company of this lively witty young man you are also left missing a lot. I never felt I got to know any of the other characters deeply, the other school kids like X-Fire (pronounced Cross Fire) or Killa became almost like cartoon caricatures, his sister and mother has no real back story other than one being the matriarch and the other a bit of a pain. I also felt like there was a whole back story in Ghana I simply didn't know enough about. Oh and I haven't even started on the talking pigeon, something I didn't think was needed or added anything other than making me a bit cross. I'm aware this sounds harsh, and indeed there are many things that make this book highly readable. Harrison's voice rings true and is a delight, it's a novel very much `of the time' and I it was highly readable - almost too readable for its topic. I wanted Stephen Kelman to give me more though, I wanted the wonderful `council estate whodunit' thread to be more of a story rather than a game/accidental thread/plot device, I wanted to know much more about his mother and what was going on with Ghana. There was a certain vagueness, or maybe it was simply too closed in a horizon which children can have, for me and that turned what could have been a fantastic book into a good one but one that didn't pack any emotional punch for me. If you have read this book then you will know it should have hit home harder all the way through but especially at the ending. All that said I would recommend `Pigeon English' but maybe not so much for the adult market, and here I think Bloomsbury have missed a bit of a trick. This is a book with a wonderful child's voice that should be being pushed into schools and aimed at a young adult market. In that setting, and with that audience, I honestly think this book would have an incredible impact. I would also recommend this as a good `book group' novel, it's a great one for discussion. Not just for its subject matter, but also for the joys and pitfalls of the child narrator in fiction. I just felt something was missing amongst all the signs of promise.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Through the Eyes of a Child,
By
This review is from: Pigeon English (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
This book portrays life on an inner city housing estate in London through the eyes of 11 year old Harri, who has recently arrived from Ghana. It is his thoughts, his experiences and those of his friends. The environment he lives in is quite depressing, with lots of bullying, crime and negativity. What it isn't, is a story, there is no plot; what it is, is a sort of diary in the life of a small boy, living through hostility on a day to day basis. It is his life, seen through his eyes and he tells us about it in his own words. Some of the things he says are quite funny, some are very sad, although I feel he doesn't really understand what is going on around him. All in all I enjoyed this book, but it did become monotonous at times.
55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A unique narrator, a tender and frightening tale,
By
This review is from: Pigeon English (Paperback)
I was given this at work to review for the childrens' website. It was an interesting tale - Harri, an eleven year old boy from Ghana is settling into his new life in the UK. He lives with his mother and slightly older sister. He is the second fastest runner in year 7, he draws the stripes on his 'Adidas' trainers, he is fascinated with the Dell Farm Crew and he is friends with Dean.When a boy is murdered on his estate, Harri and Dean start to investigate. They collect prints, observe people around their estate and search for the murder weapon. In a world where they don't trust the police, Harri's investigation starts to reach his sister, his friends, the notorious Dell Farm Crew who terrorise his estate and school, and even Harri himself. This is a gritty and funny book which deals with serious issues. Harri's voice is unique - abrupt, discriminate and innocent all at once. My only gripe is the paragraphs written from a pigeon's perspective which just didn't work for me, but overall, a great read and I would much recommend.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
