How much trouble can children get into in the summer heat of Italy? Sometimes it’s too much to handle.

"The confusing world of adulthood is dazzlingly portrayed in prose so crisp and evocative you can see the heat-haze rising from the arid fields."

"His depiction of a fallen world, in which childhood’s golden gates are slammed shut with a terrifying finality, strikes a plangent emotional chord."

"In the same way that the children in ‘Lord of the Flies’ must make their own rules, so too is Michele forced to discern a shape in the shifting confusion of adult values."

"An exquisite parable about the loss of innocence."

"This book is breathless, and surprising, to the last word."