29 Locks

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It all feels very original – I don’t think I have come across a YA novel that I could compare 29 Locks to, it’s so much Donny’s individual story. Growing up in Hackney with his loving but troubled single mum, fifteen-year-old Donny’s life has been shaped by poverty, crime and casual violence, including grooming by a local gang. I just loved the idea of walking down the towpath and seeing Donny, Zoe and Ziggy the dog cruise by on Zuma Jay! After all, it's all he knows from early childhood and having a single mum addicted yo crack and God knows what else.

Navigating the 29 locks of the Union Canal system, Donny’s mission to the city is so he can reunite with his mother who is due to be released from prison, while Zoe’s mission is to meet with a modelling agency and pose for strip photos.

Miles revisits the much-loved protagonist of 29 Miles two years after his canal boat adventure as a fifteen-year-old. Growing up in dire poverty in Hackney, East London, his life is shaped by casual violence, gang initiation, drug-dealing, and knife crime. But when Donny and his best friend Zoe plan a day trip to France ahead of their sixth form exams, Donny loses his passport and is arrested as an ‘illegal’ migrant. Tackling issues of racial injustice, child poverty, gang violence and knife crime, this powerful coming-of-age novel was inspired by my fifteen years of teaching teenage boys at a comprehensive school in inner-city London.

This is committed fiction, but the heavy lifting is done by exciting storytelling and compelling characters, not preaching. In the 2nd part of the story, Donny finds himself far from the city and in a rural area where he forms an unlikely friendship with Zoe, a posh white girl. I gather that this book is getting a great reception among teenagers, and I can imagine that lots of young people will see themselves in Donny. His devotion to her through the years of his childhood never falters, even leading him to feel guilt when enjoying the cooking of his foster mother. An adventure with Zoe leads to them following the waterways from Hartfordshire to London so Zoe can live out her dream, and Donny can see his Mum again when she's released from prison.Donny’s story is something a lot of young people find themselves in by being in and out of foster homes.