Intrigue

Eleven-year-old David Wiseman is mad about cricket but no good at it. He has the entire kit but none of the skill. So when a Jamaican family moves in next door and builds a cricket net in the back garden, David is in seventh heaven.

Eleven-year-old David Wiseman is mad about cricket but no good at it. He has the entire kit but none of the skill, and he's a laughingstock at school. So when a Jamaican family moves in next door and builds a cricket net in the back garden, David is in seventh heaven. But this is 1960s Britain, and when the neighbors make life difficult for the new arrivals, David's family is caught in the middle and he must choose between fitting in and standing up for his wonderful new friends.—Anonymous

Young Jewish lad David's passion is cricket. Unfortunately he's pretty hopeless at it, so he is delighted that the new next-door neighbors are also cricket lovers--they even put a net up in the garden and are prepared to coach him. But this is 1960s London and they are Jamaican, so David's parents find themselves under pressure to put an end to their son's friendship. As they themselves are immigrants from wartime Germany who have suffered bigotry in Britain, they have difficult choices to make.—J-26

Ruth Wiseman, of Jewish descent, married a much-older man and the couple now lives in 1960s Britain with their son and daughter. Their Caucasian neighbors tend to look down on them, and they receive threatening handwritten notes. Their son David loves cricket, but his playing lands him in charge of the scoreboard at his school. When the Samuels from Jamaica move in next door and set up a net so they can bowl cricket balls in their backyard, David meets them, and through Dennis and Loretta, he learns how to bat and bowl. He then requests to be included on his school team, and after being put through a preliminary test, he succeeds--as a tail-ender. In the very first match, David proves his worth and is promoted to middle-order batsman. He subsequently fares even better and instantly becomes popular. His popularity increases his awareness and he decides to forsake his friendship with his mentors, while some neighbors decide to take matters in their own hands to show the supposedly undesirables of their neighborhood that they are not wanted, in the neighborhood or in Britain in general.—rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)