The Boy in Wellington Boots is a true story. It faithfully recounts a childhood lost, as seen through the eyes of the young boy who lived through it and the hindsight of the adult author. 

The story charts the fallout for a family plucked from home and deposited in a strange and unfamiliar land where they are torn apart by infidelity, poverty, and sheer physical hardship. 

The author describes, in painful and frank detail, a young kid’s struggle against the neglect, hunger, and abuse visited upon him by circumstance. The account goes on to follow the author's onward journey to maturity and beyond. 

The material for The Boy in Wellington Boots provided the bittersweet inspiration for VM Frost’s previous novel, By Conscience Bound.