A Kestrel for a Knave

By Barry Hines

The classic book that inspired Kes

Barry Hines’ acclaimed novel continues to reach new generations of teenagers and adults with its powerful story of survival in a tough, joyless world.

Life is tough and cheerless for Billy Casper, a troubled teenager growing up in the small Yorkshire mining town of Barnsley. Treated as a failure at school and unhappy at home, Billy discovers a new passion in life when he finds Kes, a kestrel hawk.

Billy identifies with her silent strength, and she inspires in him the trust and love that nothing else can, discovering through her the passion missing from his life.

Barry Hines’ acclaimed novel continues to reach new generations of teenagers and adults with its powerful story of survival in a tough, joyless world.

Description

Billy Casper is a boy with nowhere to go and nothing to say; part of the limbo generation of school leavers too old for lessons and too young to know anything about the outside world.

He hates and is hated.

His family and friends are mean and tough and they’re sure he’s going to end up in big trouble.

But Billy knows two things about his own world.

He’ll never work down the mines and he does know about animals.

His only companion is his kestrel hawk, trained from the nest, and, like himself, trained but not tamed, with the will to destroy or to be destroyed.

This is not just another book about growing up in the north of England: it’s as real as a slap in the face to those who think that orange juice and comprehensive schools have taken the meanness out of life in the raw working towns.