Street Child (HarperCollins Children’s Modern Classics) - Softcover

Berlie Doherty

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007311257 ISBN 13: 9780007311255

Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books, 2009

Synopsis

Read the story of Jim Jarvis, the boy whose plight inspired Dr Barnardo to found his famous children's homes. Now published into the Essential Modern Classics list. When his mother dies Jim Jarvis is left all alone in London. He is sent to the workhouse, but quickly escapes chosing a hard life on the streets of the city over the confines of the workhouse walls. Struggling to survive, Jim finally finds some friends only to be snatched away and made to work for the remorselessly cruel Grimy Nick, constantly guarded by his vicious dog, Snipe. Will Jim ever manage to be free?

About this title

About the Author

Berlie Doherty was born in Liverpool. After university she had brief careers in children's social work and then teaching before becoming a full-time writer. She is twice-winner of the Carnegie Medal, winner of the Children's Book Award and was shortlisted for the Kurt Maschler Award, to name a few of her triumphs.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8-Set in Victorian England, this story of life on the streets has enough action to keep children reading. The book opens with Jim's desperately poor, fatherless family being evicted; within a day his sisters are in domestic service, his mother is dead, and Jim is on his own. After a year in the workhouse, he escapes. Eating and sleeping where and when he can, he is more or less sold to a cruel taskmaster with a coal boat, who reacts to Jim's attempt to flee by tying a rope around his neck. Ever resourceful, the boy finally gets away and returns to the London slums where he finds a friend dying from hunger. Realizing that he must do something to avoid a similar fate, he seeks out a man who runs a school for poor children and finds a home. The novel is based on a real boy, Jim Jarvis, and the teacher who saved him was Dr. Bernardo, who, inspired by the boy's plight, went on to establish homes for destitute children. Doherty has written a Dickensian tale with compassion and insight while creating a likable hero with the courage, persistence, and instinct to survive in a harsh, inhospitable world. Several of the supporting characters are also based on real people and are finely drawn. With the number of homeless children today, this story has relevance to contemporary society as it shows not only the price paid when poor people are dismissed as unimportant, but also the strength of the human spirit and the difference that one committed, caring person can make.
Jane Gardner Connor, South Carolina State Library, Columbia
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0007311257
• ISBN 13: 9780007311255
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208