Face

Martin is a good-looking, self-assured boy who accepts a ride home from a drunken acquaintance and ends up in a horrible accident--badly burned, his face completely disfigured. Life as it was before is over...he loses his girlfriend and his friends, and finds that people are making judgements about him and how he feels without even knowing. As Martin struggles through the reconstruction of his face, he is also working hard to reconstruct his life. His character, however, remains intact. There are startling truths in this story, written with clarity and insight, which make it utterly believable and impossible to read without heartfelt empathy. Parents, librarians, teachers and mostly children will be absorbed by the story.

Benjamin Zephaniah is a British performance poet of Jamaican descent and travels on literary world tours for the British Council. He is the author of Refugee Boy. He currently lives in England.