David Wiseman is eleven years old and mad about cricket. He has all the kit but none of the skill. When a Jamaican family moves in next door the father starts giving cricket lessons to David, and becomes close to David's mother. But this is 1960's London, and when the locals start making life difficult for the new arrivals, David has to choose between fitting and and standing up for his new friends

Nicholas Nickleby, a young boy in search of a better life, struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his coldheartedly grasping uncle.

An 11-year-old boy's amazing ability to break wind leads him first to fame and then to death row, before it helps him to fulfill his ambition of becoming an astronaut.