The Pavee and the Buffer Girl

Jim and his family of Irish Travellers have just settled in the Irish town of Dundray. They are not made welcome by the hostile inhabitants of the town, or the ‘buffers’, and when Jim and his cousins are forced to attend the local high school, they encounter children who call them names, ostracise them and bully them. Unable to read a word, Jim finds the lessons boring and monotonous, and he learns to survive the teachers’ rebukes by behaving as if he is invisible.

Then he meets Kit, a girl from his class who is an outsider for different reasons, and the two develop a tender friendship. Kit, the ‘skylark’, shows empathy and kindness towards Jim in a world full of prejudice and hatred, and she teaches him to read in their secret hiding place far away from the eyes of the world. But as Jim begins to imagine a more hopeful future in Dundray, the bullies mercilessly attack his younger cousin, and his family has no choice but to pack up and move on again.

Available in Welsh as: "Y Pafi a'i Ehedydd".