fwiw, the book turns out to do a good job of respecting the reality of the Roma. Even more than The Egypt Game, the story is more about the kids than the game, but the unromantic aspect of the Roma actually gets included in the story -- and in a way which works, not as a pasted on moraity play or info dump or anything.

And yeah, rereading The Egypt Game I was reminded of how much it influenced my play when I was younger -- wanting to replicate that (and looking back over so many of my false starts at fiction writing, and poetry, in culling out my stuff . . . I was so prone to dramatics).