THE BABY AND FLY PIE

by Melvin Burgess ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1996

Burgess (An Angel for May, 1995, etc.) sets this brutal, cheerless tale of three orphans and a kidnapped baby amid the shantytowns and roving death squads of London in the near future. Sly Sham and Davey, or Fly Pie, come across a dying gangster with a baby worth, he claims, seventeen million pounds. Not knowing what to do, Fly Pie brings in his sister, Jane, a 14-year-old ""pross""; she argues that returning the child is the honest course, that a reward--not ransom--might be the ticket to a better life. Sham and Fly Pie reluctantly go along, struggling to care for little Sylvie, contacting her tearful parents, and preparing to hand her over. At the last moment, however, they witness a horrifying scene: The street erupts with thugs and a passerby, mistaken for Jane, is savagely beaten as her baby is first seized by Sylvie's mother, then angrily thrown away. The three flee, but find no refuge; as their pursuers close in, they split up. As Fly Pie runs, he hears behind him the shot that silences Jane, with her optimistic vision of what life could and should be, forever. A bleak view of humanity and the future, with some of the quirkiness--but little of the vitality or imagination--of Nancy Farmer's The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm (1994).

Pub Date: May 1, 1996

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 184

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996

Categories: CHILDREN'S