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.