Step back in time to the winding, crowded streets of old London . . . . We are here to search for a boy called Charles Dickens.

Who is he?

A skinny, hungry child with patched sleeves? Yes.

A worker in Warren's rat-infested blacking factory? Yes.

But he's also an imaginative boy who yearns for books, and who longs to create stories of his very own.

And he is a boy who dream will come true: Charles Dickens will grow up to become one of the greatest writers of all time.

From the dust jacket 

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 is February 7, 2012, and this tale of his little-known boyhood is the perfect way to introduce kids to the great author. Here is historical fiction at its ingenious best. From deborahhopkinson.com