The outside boy - Jeanine Cummins

Acclaimed author Jeanine Cummins presents a poignant, unforgettable coming-of-age story that brings 1950s Ireland to vivid life, and tenderly explores the universal bonds of family, community, and identity.

reland, 1959: Young Christopher Hurley is a tinker, a Pavee Gypsy who roams with his father and extended family from town to town, carrying all their worldly possessions in their wagons. Christy carries with him a burden of guilt as well, haunted by the story of his mother's death in childbirth.

The wandering life is the only one Christy has ever known, but when his grandfather dies, everything changes. His father decides to settle briefly in a town, where Christy and his cousin can receive proper schooling and prepare for their first Communions. But still, always, they are treated as outsiders.

As Christy struggles to find his way amid the more conventional lives of his new classmates, he starts to question who he is and where he belongs. But then the discovery of an old newspaper photograph and a long-buried secret from his mother's mysterious past change his life forever....