The rest of the book is Harri talking. Except the name on the cover is Stephen Kelman, not Harrison Opuku. So I think it might be fake. Or maybe he's using a different name to hide from the killers. They do that on detective shows. Sometimes, it doesn't work. The killers find them anyway, and kill them. There's a dead boy in this story. Harri and his friend Dean are trying to find out who killed him. They do proper detective work and everything. Julius is Auntie Sonia's violent and abusive partner. He is known for his baseball bat, called "the Persuader," which he uses to beat people who are late repaying their debts. Julius sexually harrassed Auntie Sonia in front of her family and beats her. Poppy Morgan Personally, while I tend to prefer plot-driven fiction, I can live with minimal or no plot if there is something to connect with. And in this book, 11-year-old Harrison (aka "Harri") Opoku is such a lovable, naive, child that I couldn't help but connect with his irrepressible spirit. Like Harri, moved from Africa to an alien first-world country at around age 10-11, and found it to be a similarly bewildering and hostile place. Others may find Harri to be too precious or unbelievably innocent, but I fell for him hook, line, and sinker. And to be fair, the book is not entirely plotless, there is a murder mystery to propel things, along with a minor romantic subplot. This book is about a kid from a Ghanian family living on a rough council estate in London and his experiences after seeing a murdered child. It's told in a very authentic voice, the writing very emotive - the bullies hurt me, the murder worried me, I felt for the family still at home in Africa and I hoped he'd get through, still the same go-for-it, full-off-life kid. There was one irritating note which was that there was a pigeon whose voice could only be 'heard' by the reader. It really spoiled it. The ending was sad and strange and explained the device of the pigeon but, in my opinion anyway, the book would have been improved without it. I like Man Booker books. I like reading them. But every once in a while, I can't help but think some of them are just overrated.

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman is the story of a young boy, newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, making his way through the mean streets of London. Eleven year old Harrison Opatu is filled with gusto-for life, for language, for experiences of all kinds. He is filled with the magic of childhood. His relationship with his sister Lydia feels real and authentic. His mother is trying her best to support her children as a nurse while keeping them safe and instilling good values in a world full of violence. Harri's surroundings bristle with half-understood menace, most obviously from the alcoholics, dealers, petty criminals and teenage members of the Dell Farm Crew gang who shadow the estate. But gradually his sister, aunt and even his mother, forced into moral compromise in her struggle to give her children a better life, are implicated in the violence that pervades estate life. He and his friends come upon a crime scene where an older teen boy is stabbed to death and the remainder of the book very loosely and sloppily becomes a bit of a comedic drama about his thinking processes, amateur sleuthing and his world views. This young boy is a fast runner, full of mischief, sweet, imaginative and very funny. This story is somewhat interesting but often repetitive and too loosey goosey. Terry Takeaway is an ex-army alcoholic and known thief who lives in Harri's neighborhood. Terry Takeaway owns an unusually friendly pit bull, Asbo, and protects Harri and Dean from the Dell Farm Crew. JuliusIt's neither possible nor desirable to write lightly – or light-heartedly – about knife crime, and Pigeon English, for all its humorous touches, doesn't. What it does do is to rid the subject of its portentousness, to root it firmly in a milieu where kindness and catastrophe, laughter and viciousness coexist. It is under no illusions about the effects of external violence on Harri's life; in his school breaktime, he merrily plays a game called suicide bomber, in which "you run at the other person and crash them as hard as you can. If the other person falls over you get a hundred points. If they just move but don't fall over it's ten points. One person is always the lookout because suicide bomber is banned."

Asweh, it was very funny reading this book. But it was also very sad. It took donkey years for me to get through the first half of the book; the pidgin-Londonese sounded dey touch to me. And the story was heavy in my hands. In England Harri makes a lot of friends. I liked them. I wish the book was about them. He also has a pigeon. He rescued it, and then he sees it all the time. Sometimes the pigeon talks to him. This type of experiential learning inherently involves a process of trial and error, which can prove challenging and even dangerous, as Harri is sometimes punished for misunderstanding the customs and expectations that exist in London. For example, when the Dell Farm Crew say they have a “job” for Harri, he says that he doesn’t need a job, not realizing that X-Fire is assigning him a task as a trial for whether Harri can join their group. Although X-Fire forgives Harri’s ignorance in that instance, Harri is later punished for not showing enough respect and deference to the Dell Farm Crew. For young, vulnerable immigrants like Harri, assimilating into a given culture and understanding its language, customs, and social norms, is not just a courtesy, but can—under certain circumstances—be a matter of life and death. Harri loves science, birds, and running in the rain. He has many friends, a "special pigeon" who watches over him, and a girlfriend, Poppy Morgan. Harri lives surrounded by violence and discrimination, but he often overlooks danger. He and his friend Dean investigate the murder of a Year 11 boy and have several run-ins with the Dell Farm Crew. At the end of the text, Harri's former friend, Jordan, stabs and kills Harri. The Dead Boy Auntie Sonia is Mamma's sister who resides as an undocumented citizen in London. Auntie Sonia works a series of odd jobs, such as housekeeping, and burns off her fingerprints to avoid deportation. Auntie Sonia suffers domestic abuse from her partner, Julius, a gangster who sells fake visas and collects debts. After Julius breaks Auntie Sonia's nose and foot, she escapes London. Terry TakeawayTelling its story is 11-year-old Harrison Opuku, who has recently arrived in London with his mother and his sister, Lydia; his father, grandmother and baby sister remain in Ghana, trying to get together the money to join the rest of the family. Installed on the ninth floor of Copenhagen House, in the midst of a far from salubrious council estate, they get their bearings and begin to settle in. When a boy is murdered outside a fast food restaurant, Harri and his CSI-obsessed friend Dean take it upon themselves to investigate the crime themselves. However in an estate which is run by the Dell Farm Crew and where the police can't be trusted, Harri's innocent investigations lead him into dangerous territory with devastating consequences. I was still very scared. Anybody can die, even a baby. They die every day. The dead boy never hurt anybody and he got chooked to death. I saw the blood. His blood. If it can happen to him it can happen to anybody. Harri, June

As well as describing the estate's own "pidgin", "Pigeon English" refers to a feral pigeon Harri comes to believe is watching over him. In the novel's weakest passages, Harri's street-smart observations give way to portentous prose in which this pigeon-protector reflects on magpies, poisoned grain and the fleeting nature of human existence: "I owe it to all of you, a cheap act of confederacy against the drip-dripping of ill-captured sand." The attempt to shoehorn yet more significance into a narrative already heavy with "relevance" falls flat. That is the situation of Harrison “Harri” Opoku, the 11-y/o Ghanaian boy who goes to live in a housing settlement in London together with his mother and elder sister, Lydia. Due to poverty, they have to leave Ghana where his father, grandmother and a newborn baby, Agnes remain. One day, Harri sees a dead body of a classmate who has been murdered. He and his friend, Dean, decide to find out who the killer is because of the gift prizes that will be given to anybody who can provide clue to the killing.

Stephen Kelman Press Reviews

Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing - I read it right after I bought it. It was on the train. The train takes one hour and twenty minutes to get to Waterloo. And then I was on the bus. And then another bus. And all the time I read this book. It was pretty good. It was all about a kid named Harri. Harri lives in the council towers in London. He is from Ghana. He moved to England with his mother and his sister Lydia. His father, his grandma and the baby stayed behind. In this quotation, Harri tries to justify his desire to join the Dell Farm Crew by speculating that he could serve as a missionary for them. Though Harri doesn't want to commit crimes, his stated reason for wanting to join the gang is insincere. Throughout the text, Harri states that if he joins the Dell Farm crew, he will be "the big fish" and "all the little fish would be scared," protecting him from abuse. Thus, Harri convinces himself that if he teaches the Dell Farm Crew about God, he can benefit from their protection while maintaining his morals. I didn't care for the absolute jumpiness of the story, written as though the narrator was on something and in somewhat hyper text pieces that were interjected. The characters did not appeal to me and although I am sure Mr. Kelman tried to make them real, they just seemed like a cutout of the typical middle schooler of today. The gist of the story seems to get lost quite a bit as the kids name call, use the word hutious ad infiitum and adore the usage of four letter words. I realize that these elements are like rites of passage for young people these days, but it just did not ring true nor endear the characters to this reader. Advise yourself, and do not go lightly into this read. It is authentic and original and touching but also a bit exhausting.

Killa is a Year 11 student at Harri’s school and a member of the Dell Farm Crew. Killa dates Miquita, Lydia's friend, and burns her hand with a lighter. The text reveals that Killa likely murdered the dead boy as revenge for disrespecting the Dell Farm Crew at a school basketball game. Miquita This article is about the 2011 novel. For the language topic, see Pidgin English. For the 2007 album, see Pigeon English (album). For pigeons of England, see List of pigeon breeds. I just watched her. It was very relaxing. I had to keep proper still. I had to be extra quiet or I'd ruin it. I didn't want it to stop. The title Pigeon English immediately emphasizes that the novel is concerned with questions of linguistic and cultural hybridity. The word “pidgin” refers to a hybrid language developed so people who speak different languages can communicate with one another—usually in a colonial context. Pidgin English, therefore, refers to languages that hybridize English with another language. The title of this book, Pigeon English, is a play on words, echoing Harri’s idiosyncratic use of language, as he mixes British English with Ghanaian slang and Pidgin English (and, of course, the title also gestures to Harri’s love of pigeons). Harri makes an effort to assimilate into London culture by studying and imitating the ways in which English is spoken in London. However, considering that London, its customs, and its slang are constituted by different multiethnic factions, Harri adds to the culture rather than assimilating into it. While at Lydia’s house, Miquita tells Harri that she’s going to teach him how to kiss. However, when Miquita forces Harri’s hand inside her vagina, Harri pushes her away. Miquita and Lydia get into an argument, during which Lydia implies that Killa is a murderer.

About Stephen Kelman

Told from the perspective of Harri, an eleven year old who recently moved from Ghana to an inner city council estate, this novel perfectly depicts the horrifying reality of gangs and knife-crime in London. Harri is the first person narrator for most parts except for those that are spoken by the pigeon that visits him on their flat located on the 9th floor. While I admired the purity and ebullience of Harri’s narration, I was amazed on how Kelman handled the parts of the narrative by the pigeon especially those with open and close quotes. Kelman’s approach is fresh and inventive, playful and spontaneous. The pigeon has its own voice that provides contrast to that of Harri’s.