29 Locks

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Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit. I loved the scenes of Donny and Zoe escaping down the canal – it was especially engaging for me, as I lived in Herfordshire briefly, and I can picture that stretch of the canal so vividly.

I’m a freelance teacher and adviser for Minority Matters, an educational charity supporting disadvantaged young people in Islington. A hot meal, a warm bath when he needs and wants it, a parental figure who shows him true affection and puts her children first.To survive, he must rely on the help of unaccompanied teenage refugees, living rough in the dunes east of Calais. I have 24 years experience working in secondary schools as an English teacher, subject leader and Head of PSHE. When Donny’s bored, rich, white girlfriend Zoe is offered a dubious modeling audition, the couple "borrow" a barge and navigate the 29 locks on the canal system from Hertfordshire down into Kings Cross.

When Donny’s posh new friend Zoe is offered a dubious modelling audition in London, the pair decide to ‘borrow’ a canal barge and navigate the 29 locks down to Kings Cross.It was chosen by Suzi Feay, books editor of The Financial Times, as one of the ‘Best Books of 2021’ It is also on the longlist for the prestigious Branford Boase Award for outstanding first-time novelists.

Older, wiser and more confident, life is going well for the former gang member who’d escaped a brutal life of criminal exploitation. Difficult and complex issues are present on these pages, but the writing is so full of life and vivacity that you just glide along, keen to know how things will turn out for Donny, and rooting for him all the way.

This book is real and unafraid to confront the various issues faced by so many, but still tells a tale of hope. Chronicles his journey of born in poverty, being groomed by gangs, having a drug addicted mother, and his time in foster care. After all, it's all he knows from early childhood and having a single mum addicted yo crack and God knows what else. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall).