Leon knows all about caring for people. At nearly nine he cares for his mother and baby brother Jake. However, when the money runs out for nappies and he can't wake his mother Leon goes to Tina, his mother's friend, to borrow money as he knows his mother has in the past. But Tina wants to know what's going on and when she sees the mess in the maisonette and can hardly get a word from Leon's mother she calls in Social Services.
This is a book about one boy caught up in family breakdown and the social system. The story is set against the backdrop of 1980's England with race riots on the one hand and The Dukes of Hazzard and Curly Wurly's on the other. Leon and Jake have the same mother but different fathers (neither on the scene) and while Jake is white like his mother, Leon is black like his father. Leon desperately wants to keep his family together but his mother is ill and cannot look after him or his brother. They end up a Maureen's (a foster parent). She cares for them both and seems to understand but Leon catches Maureen talking about his mother behind his back. He doesn't trust anyone. No one seems to listen to what he wants or understand how he feels. Things come to a heartbreaking point early on when Jake is adopted but it seems no one wants Leon. And then Maureen falls ill.
It seems that everything he has is gradually stolen from him and he ends up living with Maureen's sister Sylvia (a former foster parent).
Written from Leon's point of view we see how he has grown up too soon yet still is so innocent in many ways. Social Services have to make heart wrenching choices every day but Leon doesn't understand that. He only knows he wants to be with his family.
Leon doesn't make friends with other children but with two very different men on an allotment near to Sylvia's house. All the while Leon is plotting to run away, get Jake and go to his mother in Bristol so his little family can be back together again. Yet on the night he leaves he becomes caught up in a riot between the police and the black community. Can Leon save himself? Can he ever find his brother and mother? Is this going to be his life forever?
This is a poignant story and must be very typical of children in care. There are moments when Leon's thoughts are heart wrenching - feelings of failure, that his mother loves Jake more than him and that everyone is deciding his life for him and he has no say. It certainly opens your eyes to the pain families suffers when everything breaks down. An excellent read.
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