This BBC news report tells about how Gypsy gangs use children to beg and steal money: How Gypsy gangs use child thieves Homework questions (when and where was Rumer Godden born and where and when did she die? Where are “the South Downs” and “ Rye, Sussex“?)

for hosting mixed race child of Romany heritage, Kizzy, and her great- great grandmother in his orchard. Admiral Twiss respectfully refers to Kizzy’s carer as Mrs Lovell unlike the majority of villagers. The sheer misery Kizzy undergoes demands a happy ending - sentimental and unlikely it may be but who would begrudge the battling little Kizzy a little happiness? Aimed squarely at the female half of the young audience Kizzy was one of the best-remembered 'weepies' among girls of that era.

More than 1,000 Romanian Roma live in just one of the many camps that lie on the outskirts of Madrid. It does, as others have noted, have a bit of a fairy-tale ending, but it also has some very dark moments such as when Kizzy is beaten up by a group of girls from her school. This is a tale from before the days of political correctness and helicopter parenting, when kids were left to get on with things by themselves, including sorting out their differences by behaving as kids do in the wild, i.e. being cruel, nasty, and inclined to physical bullying when they have the upper hand. I remember it well--sitting in my German class pulling out clumps of hair after being roughed up by another girl with her gang of friends watching to ensure I didn't get away. Fortunately I never had it as bad as Kizzy, and certainly not at the age of eight. The admiral knows the gypsies traditions and he respects them. He also trusts the gypsies (even though there is a fire in his orchard, he is not worried).

This is a children's book, and one I wish I'd read when I was a kid. The book was originally released in 1972 when I was 12, which would have been the perfect age. It's a story of a half-gypsy or Diddakoi called Kizzy, who goes to live with non-Romany people when her grandmother dies. Kizzy is no shrinking violet victim however but an ambivalent heroine, who gives as good as she gets. Given to tantrums, she pouts and sulks her way through six episodes. The sheer misery Kizzy undergoes demands a happy ending – sentimental and unlikely it may be but who would begrudge the battling little Kizzy a little happiness?

I've only ever read one other book by Rumer Godden -- the lovely little The Story of Holly and Ivy, which I loved as a child -- so when I saw this at the library a few weeks ago, I was intrigued. a b c "The diddakoi" (Macmillan, 1972). Library of Congress Online Catalog. Library of Congress. Retrieved 17 December 2022. note the gypsies’ ways of thinking (“Are you going to let your woman talk to me like that?”, “we don’t want no snoopers”, “’tisn’t children as are the bother… it’s the things they have to have”, “When you had one wagon there was plenty of room; in a fine house with three bedrooms there’s no room at all”. Kizzy‘s themes include comments on the care system, tradition versus modernity, middle-class snobbery and above all tolerance for – and indeed celebration of – difference and cultural diversity.