Who'd steal a tree anyway? Who'd chook a boy just to get his Chicken Joe's?
-- Narrator (March)

Importance: Because Harri and his family have recently moved to their England housing estate from Ghana, at the start of the novel, Harri is curious about his new surroundings. In this passage from the opening section, "March," Harri describes all of the oddities that define his community and neighborhood. He is particularly curious about the cages that surround all of the neighborhood trees. To Harri, these cages are as inexplicable to him as the news that a young boy was recently murdered outside of a local fast food restaurant. This moment not only illuminates the way in which 11-year-old Harri sees and processes the world, but how the dead boy's murder will increasingly define his sense of life and of death.

Children aren't supposed to die, only old people. It even made me worried if I...
-- Narrator (March)