The Changeling (Paperback)

Our summary description

As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.

In Glasgow, thirteen year old Tom Curdie is already marked out, a product of the slums and on probation for theft. His teachers admit he is clever, but most see only the surface: the insolence, the smile that looks like defiance. Only one, Charlie Forbes, believes there is something else there.

Forbes makes a decision that crosses a line between the classroom and private life. He takes Tom on holiday with his own family, hoping that a different setting, a different kind of attention, might change what is possible for the boy.

The consequences are tragic. The Changeling follows the uneasy meeting of innocence and pressure, and asks what happens when goodness is compromised by the demands of growing up and being made to fit into society.