num_pages: 368
description: From the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author comes the poignant and shocking memoir of Cathys recent relationship with Tayo a young boy she fosters whose good behaviour and polite manners hide a terrible past. Tayo arrives at Cathys with only the clothes he stands up in. He has been brought to her by the police but he is calm polite and very well spoken and not at all like the children she normally fosters. The social worker gives Cathy the forms which should contain Tayos history but apart from his name and age it is blank. Tayo has no past. Tayo is an 'invisible' child kidnapped from his loving father in Nigeria and brought illegally to the UK by his drink and drugs dependent prostitute mother where he is put to work in a sweat shop in Central London. When he sustains an injury and is no longer earning he is cast out. When Cathy takes Tayo to school he points out a dozen different addresses where he has stayed in the last six months often being left alone. Tayo lies and manipulates situations to his own advantage and Cathy has to be continually on guard. Tayos social worker searches all computer databases but there is no record of Tayo  he has only attended school for 3 terms and has never seen a doctor. He and his mother have been evading the authorities by living underground. With his mother recently released from prison Tayo is desperate to live with his father in Nigeria but no one can track him down or even prove that he exists. Cathy Glass' book 'A Family Torn Apart' was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 10-10-2022.
language: English
title: Hidden
publisher: HarperElement