From her parents' 1970s tenement council flat ten-year-old Robyn soon becomes so skilled at shoplifting her reputation spreads. She takes her punishment at school but is much more scared of the vicious threats of her father; & as frightened for her mother's safety as for her own. Her fun-loving grandmother offers her comfort wisdom & hope that Robyn might be different from her parents. But as her father's random cruelty intensifies she has to seek refuge in her nan's flat & in the homes of friends even joining her mother in a women's shelter to escape her 'father'. All this time she is learning more about the unpredictable ways of the people around her & her own potential. She'll need all of this precocious wisdom & the assistance of Nan to face up once & for all to the twisted violence in her home & engineer a way out of this childhood to reach a place of safety & freedom. This moving story is told in a wonderfully vivid child's voice
- her resourcefulness & courage will break your heart""