The Girl with the Red Boots

Alex Wheatle, who sadly died of cancer earlier this year, is probably best known among young readers for his Crongton novels, recently adapted for a series by the BBC. This latest novel starts far away from the mean urban streets familiar from Crongton, but with a violent act that changes Kadeen’s life. Her beloved brother Edson is gunned down in a random shooting in their hometown of Old Harbour, Jamaica, and Kadeen, who sees the gunman speeding away from the scene, is one of only a few witnesses who can identify him. With her life under threat, Kadeen is sent to London to stay with an aunt she barely knows until the gunman, who is on the run, can be arrested. Despite its beginning and the threat that hangs over Kadeen for much of the novel, this is mostly a story of family and friendship, and how Kadeem copes with her new life. The red boots of the title are Kadeem’s football boots, a gift from Edson, and it is her love of playing the game that brings her new friends and into a short-lived conflict with her aunt. It is an upbeat tale with richly drawn characters, some sharp social observation, and enough commentary and goals to gladden the heart of any reader who is a player or fan of the game. How many of them, I wonder, might dream of emulating Kadeem’s exploits on the pitch and the recognition she earns at the end of the book?