Michael Pine is an orphaned 12-year-old living with his uncle in a town called Moss-on-Stone.  He often skips school in order to hang out with older boys, who are trying to recruit and groom him as one of their gangmembers.  During an gang initiation event (stealing a video game from a store), he gets caught, runs out into the street and get hits by a car, gets up and runs again out of town, through the woods, until he comes to what looks like an abandoned cottage with a ten-foot high stone wall.  He sits, hides, and rests, during which he hears music he has never heard before.  Later, he is caught by the police and brought before the judge.  The plans are to put him and his kind in juvenile detention, but the judge believes/hopes there is a future for Michael.  He gives Michael a choice:  either juvenile detention or he goes to school, has a job after school, and reports to the court clerk every day; oh, and must stay away from gang members.  He agrees to the offer and actually finds that he really enjoys the work and structure.  Finally things seem to go his way.  As part of his job as delivering groceries, he finds himself back at the abandoned-looking cottage, and is introduced to Lemuel Gulliver, a giant of a man, whose back yard is a garden city for Lilliputians–a race of people only inches tall.  Gulliver sees Michael as a kindred spirit and recruits him to be a guardian of the Lilliputians and teaches him how to help and protect them.  Michael also becomes friends with Jane, a girl his age who lives a pampered life.  However, the gang members are still on his case, and work hard to recruit him, or at least make people believe that he is a gang member.  Michael is falsely accused of crimes and is sent to juvenile detention.  Meanwhile Gulliver has left and the Lilliputians are in trouble.  Heavy rain is threatening to destroy their village and weasels are finding their way in, intent to eat them.  You find yourself cheering for Michael in all that he has accomplished–he is originally portrayed as a follower, without much incentive or morality.  But his character grows as his life is given structure and he learns that people care about him.  He finds a way to right the wrongs.  This book has great characterization, a fast-moving plot, and well-described settings.  You don’t have to worry about reading the original Gullivers Travels–just jump right in and enjoy yourself.