Great book! Unique and surprising characters; a look at a different way of coping with turmoil. Harri Opuku is my hero!

The best book I've read all year (in as much as I finished it on 31 Dec 2011!) ... I was gripped immediately by the clear, honest voice of Harri, and loved the style of writing and tough use of language. That there could be so much wonder and optimism in so bleak a place was funny and moving. And for me, the ending was a total shock.

This is one of those novels with a clear voice, here the voice of Harri (Harrison) Opoku. Harri lives with his mom (a midwife) and his older sister Lydia on the 9th floor of an apartment building in London, England. Harri's dad, little sister and grandma are still back in Ghana and Harri wants desperately to see them again, as the phone calls aren't enough for him. Harri has made a friend, Dean, and the two boys spend a lot of time together. Another boy from Harri's school has been knifed and killed and Harri and Dean take it upon themselves to look for the killer since the police don't seem to be making headway. The two boys relish their role as detectives and take clues seriously, trying to gather fingerprints and other hard data. Harri is also a bird lover, and takes a special liking to a particular pigeon, having secret conversations with it. He is also both fascinated and repelled by the local gang, the Dell Farm Crew, and is occasionally singled out by their leader X-Fire. Harri is an innocent, trying to be the man of the house in his father's absence, and is a good boy at heart. Even his work to find the boy's killer is a good work, one he feels drawn to because the boy once did a nice thing for him. This is a story that will stick with you, young Harri's voice grabbing you and not letting go.

I like a book that plays with language. You might want to start by having a quick look through the glossary before reading. The narration by an 11-year-old was a bit aggravating to start, but I was feeling the love for him midway through. Love for him and all the vulnerable people and animals (yes, pigeons) trying to eek out a life in this world. Booker shortlisted 2011

follows a recent Ghanaian immigrant investigating a murder in London's housing projects. "Knife fights might seem like a quaint way to settle gang spats; they hark back to West Side Story more than The Wire. In Britain, however, knife violence is a seemingly ever-present threat. In 2008, there were a record 277 fatal stabbings. One older murder that still resonates in Britain is the case of Damilola Taylor, a 10-year-old immigrant from Nigeria who bled to death in the stairwell of his southeast London council estate after being stabbed by two 12-year-old boys. It’s against this backdrop of explosive juvenile bravado and working-class desperation that Stephen Kelman sets his debut novel, Pigeon English, a book both chilling and charming." Rebecca Caldwell Globe & Mail June 1 2011

Stephen Kelman's debut novel Pigeon English introduces readers to one of the most pervasively and persuasively authentic narrator voices in fiction in recent memory. That recent memory includes the precocious Jack in Room by Emma Donoghue and the quietly unforgettable Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon ... which means that Kelman's 11-year-old Harrison Opoku (known as Harri to his family and friends) is in admirable and luminous company. Harri has just arrived in London from Ghana with his mother and teenaged sister, and is living in a housing estate that would be euphemistically labelled a "priority" or "at risk" neighbourhood in some constituencies. Harri's family is asunder - his grandmother, father and infant sister remain behind in Ghana - and in some unspecified peril because of the terms by which some of them were able to come to England. Harri's natural and infectious ebullience seems more affected by long distance yearnings for the people left behind than stymied or threatened by the more immediate cacophony surrounding him at home, at school and on the streets. Even when a boy is stabbed to death in his neighbourhood, it fascinates Harri more than it truly bothers or affects him, as the sound of his baby sister's voice getting cut off on the phone clearly does. Voices near and far are just one of an intricate interweaving of metaphors and imagery that Kelman handles with impressive assurance for a first-time novelist. Kelman controls well but not obtrusively not just his protagonist's voice, but the chorus of supporting characters' voices echoed and interpreted through the protagonist. Through his mastery of the subtleties of voice, accent and expression, Kelman also sensitively and precisely manages the perceptions that drive the story forward, and the misapprehensions and naivete that lead it understandably astray. Kelman incorporates other types of potent imagery and weaves them organically and comfortably into Harri's words and observations, without undermining the believability of Harri's voice, but also of the gritty realities he faces navigating amongst schoolmates, gangs, shopkeepers, police officers and others in his inner-city world. References to fingerprints and fingertips are especially intriguing - how they are used to identify or when erased, to hide one's identity - but also how they are used to gather information and experience the textures and sensations of the world. Much of the imagery builds on the feelings of a child hungry to learn, to grow, to love and be loved. The only false note in Pigeon English is the intermittent introduction of a second narrative voice that can't possibly match the authenticity and vivacity of Harri's voice. This second voice neither expands the view of the story credibly beyond Harri's perceptions and assessments, nor does it work well metaphorically as other imagery does. As well, the pigeon/pidgin pun is not only forced, but is ever-so-slightly offensive, and seems to strangely demean the book's greatest achievement: its convincing voices in all of their linguistic originality and complexity. A pidgin language is defined as a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. Harri's voice and vocabulary form a surprisingly sophisticated argot and amalgam of everything from Ghanaian, English and Ghanaian-English slang to commercial and technological terminology to his own sweet and singular usages and classifications of the world. It's unforgettable and not to be diminished as something lesser or compromised. When the book ends and Harri's voice is stilled, this reader immediately, achingly, acutely missed him - true testament to the strength of an indelibly forged voice. Asweh, you won't want to let go of young, vibrant Harri either.