Micka

You are ten years old, and living in a chaotic, fractured world created by the adults in your life. Micka loves drawing and wants a pup, but with older brothers into violence and petty crime, and a mother who can’t read the notes his teacher sends home from school, neither he nor the pup stand much of a chance. Then a new boy starts in Micka’s class. Laurie, whose crazy mother and emotionally remote father have just split up, is a year older than Micka, and precociously articulate. Both boys have vivid imaginations, but when they meet, their imaginary worlds collide, with disastrous as Laurie’s fantasies of magic and revenge become more and more unsettling, he pulls Micka into a dangerous game where the line between make-believe and real life -- and, ultimately, death -- is increasingly blurred. Written in direct, uncompromising yet compassionate prose, and with a breathtaking clarity of insight, Micka is an astonishingly assured debut -- and an unforgettable story.