'When the next baby is dropped, I will leave to make room for him. He will take my place.' Abandoned at birth, the Brothers of the Ikkuma Pit know no mothers. They fend for themselves, each training their Little Brother to survive - until they grow into men and it's time for their Leaving Day. No boy knows what's beyond the forest. No Brother who left has ever come back. Until now . . . 'An imaginative world with the glint of originality . . . richly conceived' Sunday Times 'The writing [is] sharp and funny, the boys [are] an arresting mixture of toughness and tenderness' Guardian