Welsh book read fast

About a month ago I announced I had was about to start reading a new book in Welsh. The previous one had taken me years. This one I polished off already! My prediction this one wouldn't last as long as the other one came true...

This book was written a lot better, and in less dictionary-requiring language. It was written in Bethesda slang, so if I didn't recognise a word, generally the dictionary didn't either. Quite soon I generally gave up looking stuff up. That saved a lot of time! I missed some things through my non-understanding of early-twentieth-Century smalltown dialect, but I'm sure I got the essence of the book. 

So what is it about? It turns out to be an almost-autobiography of the author, who grew up poor and fatherless in slate quarry town Bethesda. This book is about a kid in a similar situation. It is mainly seen through his eyes; it is mainly him telling stories about his daily life. From his rather innocent viewpoint (most of the book he's nine years old) you do see the poverty, the alcoholism, the abuse. It mainly appears on the side; the kid himself is more interested in the next sandwich. There are plenty of happy stories, too; sneaking into football games, gathering mushrooms, having lunch at Gran's. But WWI is on and villagers die; they also do of industrial accidents, diseases, violence.

I thought the end was a bit weird but I liked the book altogether; it gives an idea of life in that village at that time. The perspective of the kid gives it a charm of its own. Things just happen; the book never gets preachy. It easily could have! Chwalfa did, a bit. That is set in the same village, and only some 20 years earlier in time.I'm starting to get a good idea of the place in the early 20th Century! But the next book, I think, is set in Cardiff, and I think it's a modern setting (it was only published in 2006, so I'm being uncharacteristically modern) so I'm in for a change of scenery...

 The next book! Warmly recommended by my Welsh teacher...