Ned Reardon 
Blackberry Bill 

Blackberry Bill is an enchanting tale about a ten-year-old orphaned boy who bravely sets out alone upon the Kentish marshes in pursuit of a mysterious recluse. He believes that this eccentric character, a gypsy commonly known as Blackberry Bill, may hold the answers he seeks with regard to his own identity. When the two eventually meet, the boy learns that he is in fact the same person who had saved his life as a baby. A touching friendship starts to flourish between the unlikely pair as the gypsy starts to teach the boy all about the pots and bottles which he continually excavates and about the delights and dangers present on the marsh, as well as something of his Romany way of life.Blackberry Bill is a gripping, beautifully written story whose wonderfully-evoked naturalistic descriptions bear comparison with Dickens’s own accounts of the mysteries of the Kentish marshes. This book is unforgettable.