Changes

Alamayu is a reluctant scholar, excelling only in horse-riding, football and shooting, but he makes the best of his new life and even makes some friends, outsiders like himself. He is bullied at Rugby by the charismatic Carson, who subtly undermines his confidence and insinuates that there is no point in trying to succeed because as a black man he will never really belong in Britain. When the book opens he is in the sick bay, racked with fever and debilitating weakness, and his mind fills with long suppressed memories of his home land and his life as a small child, before the British came. He begins to understand more clearly the events which brought him to this place, and he dreams of one day returning to the land of his ancestors and claiming his birth right, promising himself he will rule with wisdom and fairness. With him we relive the grief he felt at losing his parents, his terror when he experienced his first train journey, and his anxiety he feels because he does not know correct British etiquette (he is horrified at the thought that he almost bowed to a footman at Osborne, believing him to be a nobleman).

Other excellent books by the same author about boys and girls torn from their homes or simply trying to survive include [[Lost Riders by Elizabeth Laird|Lost Riders]], and [[Oranges in No Man's Land by Elizabeth Laird|Oranges in No Man's Land]].