Ten-year-old Emil lives with his mother in a rented flat in an unnamed European city. While she works hard in a low-paid job, Emil struggles to understand school work, abstract maths and the motivations of the adults that surround him, He is a special boy who talks to some people normally while with others is fully or partially mute. His uncle Jakov thinks that everything to do with Emil is about intimacy and trust and searches for a way to get close to him, while blind Professor Antun delights in his acute, almost magical hearing abilities and the local drug dealer connives to take advantage of the boy's guilelessness. Special Needs reads like a modern-day To Kill a Mockingbird, where the heart-breaking truth of life is narrated through the voice of an innocent child. With the perception and skill of an artist in charge of her craft, the author has created for us the unforgettable character of Emil, who understands everything and yet is so rarely understood.