Kerb Stain Boys

by Alex Wheatle

Life on the Crongton estate can be rough for Briggy. Dad's lost his job, Mum's working so hard to make ends meet, and big brother Kingsley just wants out. With all of the shouting and arguing it's difficult not to get lost in the mix. So when his best mate Terror and coolest chick in the year Caldonia, cook up a plan to make a quick buck, Briggy hopes this time it might be his chance to shine. Robbing the Post Office ... what could go wrong? A brilliantly real and funny novella of life on one of London's toughest (fictional) estates.

Genres: Young Adult

112 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2018

About the author

Alex Alphonso Wheatle was a British novelist, who was sentenced to a term of imprisonment after the 1981 Brixton riot in London.

Reviews

[Eve L-A Witherington · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book once again set on the Crongton estate, Briggy gets drawn in by Terror his best friend to help rob and get some some cash.



Caldonia says she has a bad home life with her rich dad while Briggy has to deal now with his parents splitting up.



As they try their attack things go awry and maybe getting into trouble will some them a way forward for a positive future and not one wasted in jail.



Being set on an estate I can imagine a reality somewhere this is almost a real event. On estates in deprived places kids would probably try to rob or do worse and sadly this book reinforces that matter however it shows it doesn't have to be the way and that good can come from being bad. A realistic read about the dangers of choices and everything not being as it seems too.

[Bev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alex Wheatle's Crongton estate is a pretty tough place to live, and this novella written to be accessible for reluctant older readers has suitable gritty text to relect this, but there's lots of humour built in to lighten the mood too. Some fruity language as one would expect for realism but certainly nothing as bad as the expletives kids are probably hearing on a daily basis in their school playgrounds! The story is fast paced and carries you along with it, and it's a salutary tale about consequences but the message is subtle and never preachy. I'll be taking this in to the inner London school I work in one day a week and I'm sure it'll be a big hit.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was not overly enamoured with this one - we had bought it for 11-12 year olds and it's now being moved up to KS4 due to the content.
Wasn't particularly happy with the objectification of the girls - their characters were pretty terrible, although I guess the author was trying to appeal to teenage boys. Family stuff didn't get developed. The ending seemed to be promoting all of the cool things you can do if you get put in juvenile detention. The slang was cringy and the similes worse. But we'll see what the kids think.

[Rob Peck · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ll reconsider my rating if my students engage with this… but I am very very sceptical…

The slang the kids speak in is outdated (if it was ever a thing), and cringe. The male gaze is verrry strong. The ending is complete whack.

[Duncan Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great novella with Terror and Briggy.

Brixton's Elmore Leonard

[David Peat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great little novella. Has all of Wheatle’s great observations on friendship, beautiful girls and decisions influenced by the social world.

[eda · Rating 2 out of 5]

read it with my year 8s this term!

[Newt · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this so much 😭. The cringy writing, odd dialogue and blatant objectification of women made me want to throw this book across the room. Also, the entire premise of the book that they were leading up to happened in the last 20 pages and was over in about 3 pages. For a short book, I wish it was shorter.

[Christopher Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered Kerb Stain Boys in my local library. At 35 I am not the target audience and admittedly I struggled with the way the book was written at first. Maybe this fact shows I am actually getting old.
That being said once I managed to get into the flow with the slang words it was pretty easy to understand their meaning.
To me the ending was a bit anticlimactic but if I was a teenager I think I'd find it a suitable ending.

Overall I am glad I took a look at a different genre and I am looking forward to reading another of the authors books.

[Hilde Kathrina]

I did overall enjoy the story and the realism of it, but as someone whose first language isn’t English, I found the extensive use of slang distracting - and eventually repetitive. The number of times words like ‘step’, ‘scope’ and ‘toes’ appeared throughout had me mostly annoyed. This also means that the book won’t be a good fit for most pupils at my school, because of the unfamiliarity of the language. I’ll still keep it on the shelf, but will put a note on the cover warning potential readers that there’s a lot of slang haha.