The Electric Kid

Like Ian Strachan's Throwaways, poor children have taken to the rubbish dumps at a future time when the gap between the haves and havenots has dramatically widened. This book relies more on action than ideas, but its lively central characters, Hotwire (a girl with a gift for anything electrical) and Blindboy (with marvellously acute hearing), and its style, which owes much to Hollywod films (including a wonderful chase scene), will keep many readers engrossed.