This is the story of a pair of orphans, but unlike Oliver Twist, who also used to work for Fagin, this is not the thing that musicals are made of.

This short, quick novel gives the basics of what lead the two children to turn to a life of crime, to survive, and then, we find how it all ends up for them.

The author based this on research of how children lived in Victorian times, as also what happened when they were transported to Australia, for offenses as simple as pick-pocketing.

Nicely done story, but a little too short for me, but that is the way high-low readers work. Short novels, written to get in and out of quickly.

<em>Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. </em>

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.