Cold, hungry, lonely and scared, Nikki soon discovers that life on the streets of London is even tougher than she thought it would be. Nick, though, is used to scraping together a living for himself and his family. And whilst neither of them means to break the law, they soon find that isn't as easy as it sounds.

Two teenagers, a hundred years apart, offer a compelling insight into homelessness in this powerful novel from the author of Stone Cold.

What are the themes?

Prejudice, courage, survival, family, loyalty, homelessness and injustice. Cross-curricular links to history, geography and PSHE are strong.

Teaching points

The intriguing and thought-provoking parallel narratives of Nikki in the present day and Nick in the mid-nineteenth century make this an ideal text for Key Stage 3 offering excellent cross-curricular links. Linguistic discussion is provoked by the extensive use of historical dialect.

This book is part of a book series called New Longman Literature 11-14 .

This book is suitable for Key Stage 3. KS3 covers school years 7, 8 and 9, and ages 12-14 years. A key stage is any of the fixed stages into which the national curriculum is divided, each having its own prescribed course of study. At the end of each stage, pupils are required to complete standard assessment tasks.

There are 240 pages in this book. This book was published 2005 by Pearson Education Limited .

Robert Swindells is author of the award-winning novel Brother in the Land and has just finished his first picture book for children. He lives in West Yorkshire, England.