THE DIAMOND OF DRURY LANE

Young Cat, red-haired and full of curiosity, lives at the Theater Royal in Drury Lane, having been abandoned there as a wee babe and raised by the theater folk and Mr. Sheridan, the owner. Golding surrounds Cat with colorful characters. The butcher boy, also a boxer, heads up a gang that rivals that of evil Billy Boil. Johnny draws revolutionary cartoons and has a secret. The music master’s protégé, freed slave Pedro, plays the violin like an angel and becomes Cat’s partner in adventures. There are boxing and gang fights and pawnshops and a terrible jail and a lively pair of noble siblings who fall in with Cat; there are overheard conversations—like the one about a hidden diamond…. The characterization tends to the sketchy and offhand, but the story itself plunges headlong from the theater into 1790s-era London’s muddy streets and silken drawing rooms. Readers will be heartened to know that this is the first of a projected quartet (although it eschews a cliffhanger ending). Winner of the 2006 Smarties Prize. (Historical fiction. 10-14)