“This is old London, on a winter morning long ago. Come along, now. We are here to search for a boy called Dickens.” This second-person plural voice invites young readers into 1820s London and the life of twelve-year-old Charles Dickens. Detailed illustrations give a sense of dirt and deprivation, while the text describes Charles’s work in Warren’s blacking factory. There he entertains his coworker with storytelling during their ten-hour workdays, before returning to his tiny attic room where he continues telling stories by writing on his slate. On Sundays Charles visits his family in the Marshalsea Prison, where his father is incarcerated for unpaid debt to the baker. Charles is eventually let go from his laborious job at the factory, when his father, released from debtors’ prison, quarrels with the owner. At last able to return to school in Camden town, Charles Dickens never forgot these early experiences that influenced so much of his later writing. (Ages 6–10)

For years Dickens kept the story of his own childhood a secret. Yet it is a story worth telling. For it helps us remember how much we all might lose when a child's dreams don't come true . . . As a child, Dickens was forced to live on his own and work long hours in a rat-infested blacking factory. Readers will be drawn into the winding streets of London, where they will learn how Dickens got the inspiration for many of his characters. The 200th anniversary of Dickens's birth was February 7, 2012, and this tale of his little-known boyhood is the perfect way to introduce kids to the great author. This Booklist Best Children's Book of the Year is historical fiction at its ingenious best.