October 2014 Book of the Month Perceptive, provocative and deeply moving, Benjamin Zephaniah tells a hard hitting story about how dangerous making one simple wrong choice can be. Rico loves computers and he is brilliant at fixing and developing them. And at hacking into sites which are meant to be fully protected. Rico also believes in protest – silent, dignified protest in which you stand up to be counted but never engage in anything violent or illegal. Rico hates trouble and does everything he can to avoid it. But Rico makes one terrible mistake when he is persuaded by a stranger to do an apparently harmless job. How can Rico prove his innocence when everything is twisted against him? Benjamin Zephaniah is wise on how easily the honesty and naivety of the young can be exploited and misused.
A Piece of Passion from Emma Matthewson, Editor-at-Large Benjamin Zephaniah's Terror Kid took quite a long time to evolve. Benjamin's original idea was about a teenager taking over the world, but as Benjamin and I discussed the book, it evolved into Terror Kid - the story of a teenage boy who is good at heart, but is also angered by the injustice he sees around him. This anger allows him to be manipulated by an unscrupulous man with a hidden agenda called, ironically Speech.
When Benjamin was talking about the idea for Terror Kid, it was the fact that the main character, Rico could so easily be somebody you know that really interested me - although this could be said for all of Benjamin's books! Benjamin writes about the real world, and his characters face such true-to-life yet painful dilemmas - you really identify with the characters, so much so that you have to finish the book to see what will happen to them.
I hope that Terror Kid will make everybody who reads it want to revisit their own views on both the nature of crime and the story behind the headlines you see in the papers; and to think about why rather than how crime is committed. As I say, I hope it does. With events that we see happening around us every day it seems to be increasingly important.
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