I really enjoyed this modern take on Oliver Twist it was fun, engaging and gave a look into the horrific life in Dickensian London without being overly horrific. A great boook for children.

Inventive look at Dickensian life, bringing the world of "Oliver Twist" to the attention of Barrington Stoke's usual audience of dyslexics and owners of other reading disabilities and difficulties. Of course, as always, you don't have to have an issue with reading to enjoy their stories, but they are the best at providing for those that do have them. Here they'll find Ettie's life go downhill and downhill fast, until she finds her brother is being employed by a certain Mr Fagin, which must be wonderful, seeing how he sounds like a second-hand merchant and trader of things found on the street. The story is, however, one of the slightly open-ended efforts I've seen this house offer more and more of, building through its wonderful world creation, and growing to a peak then stopping. A much more modern-set coda can't really pretend to close all the gaps and make everything look rosy, either, especially with the factual background to the story we get to finish. This then is no bundle of joys, but is still riveting for the right young reader (the publishers say eight and up, for both audience age and for reading ability), and may easily sway someone to try an adaptation of Dickens' original, on whose toes it never treads, much preferring to be its own thing – and being it rather well. Just don't come for the laughs.