The Fastest Boy in the World

Elizabeth Laird's The Fastest Boy in the World is an Ethiopian adventure for 8 year olds about a barefoot boy who dreams of running for his country.

What happens

Solomon lives in a round, thatched house in the highlands, where the family's animals sleep behind a screen at night. He runs everywhere. He runs the five miles to school most mornings. What he really wants is to be a great runner like the Ethiopian heroes everyone at home talks about.

Then one evening his grandfather decides that Solomon is eleven (probably, nobody's quite sure) and old enough to walk with him to Addis Ababa. It's twenty-three miles on foot. Solomon has never even been on a bus! And the Olympic team are flying home the same day, with a grand procession planned through the streets.

The city is overwhelming. There are glass buildings, crowds and traffic, and a cousin who's plainly not pleased to see them. A truck nearly flattens Grandfather at the side of the road. And there's a mysterious errand. Grandfather is looking for a man in an office above a pastry shop, and he won't say why.

Solomon tells it himself, and it's such a warm, honest voice. He counts steps, notices everything and worries about looking like a country bumpkin in his bare feet and stained old shorts. When he finds out who his stern old grandfather really used to be, you'll feel your jaw drop along with his.

It's worth knowing that Grandfather's story includes some hard history. He was a soldier in the Emperor's Bodyguard, and after the revolution he spent years in prison, where men were starved and beaten. He hit a guard with a hammer to protect his friend and escaped on a runaway horse. It's told as a story over a glass of tea in an office rather than shown, but it's there. Solomon's older brother, who died when he was little, is mentioned early on too.

Before the trip is over, all that running will matter far more than any race.

What to read next

If they love this, save The Prince Who Walked With Lions for when they're a bit older. It's Elizabeth Laird again, set in Ethiopia's past, about the young son of an emperor, and it's a heavier read.