I struggled with believing that the main character of this book was only seven years old. He regularly had adult conversations with adults and engaged in a scheme involving catching rats and cutting off their tails and painting them for sale to people. That just seems unreasonably mature for a seven year old to come up with and execute. And also extremely disturbing. The storyline is slow because the story is so focused on this child, who is charming, but it's really unbelievable.