The Baby and Fly Pie

Fly Pie and Sham are rubbish pickers, who go to the tip every day to pick rubbish for Mother Shelly. Then one day everything changes when they come across a dying man and a baby – a baby worth seventeen million pounds. Together with Fly’s sister Jane, they must try to evade the Monroe gang, keep the baby alive, and negotiate for a reward that will allow them to escape the poverty in the life they are used to. Yet in a society driven by self-interest, deceit and greed, is happiness only fleeting?

Set in a dystopian world of class polarisation, slums, violence, enslaved children and extreme poverty, this bleak and often disturbing book is most suited to older children and teenagers. As always, Melvin Burgess will leave readers with a great deal to think about.