The Lament of the Leprechauns

11 year-old Wayne is a working-class kid, growing up in the Yorkshire Dales with his rather morose father who has a monotonous job in a factory and his mother cleans at a local pub. Everything seems fairly normal in his life, except for the fact that he has unfeasibly large, pointed ears. Wayne's mundane life changes dramatically when a local bully puts him in hospital, where he inadvertently discovers that everything he had taken for granted in his life was based on a series of secrets and lies. This book describes how Wayne, upon discovering that he is adopted, runs away to find his real parents. On his travels, Wayne discovers that he is the son of the last survivor of an immortal, magical race who inhabited Ireland in its early prehistory. Wayne's latent magical powers emerge and increase as he takes more and more risks, until he is nearly as powerful as his shape-shifting forebears. His natural father explains his destiny to him as the prophesised saviour, not only for his people, but of wider humanity. Such a significant figure as "The Slanaitheoir Mor," howevHeHe Wayne Higginbotham's seemingly unremarkable little life becomes quite remarkable indeed.