Book 0141

A scruffy four-year-old street urchin, Anna, is taken in by an equally streetwise young man, Fynn. Unpretentiously, coolly, her grasp of physics, maths, life and "Mister God" emerge and defy credibility - but also grab you by the throat. Published in 1974 and set in gritty East London, it's uplifting, funny and upsetting. I found it as a teenager and rediscovered it years later. It has stuck. If you like to be transported by fiction only for its truth to smack you in the face as you're walking along the road, try this.