My Caravan's A Rainbow: A Mystical Life In Colour

Michael Davidson is a seven-year-old boy who has been born with the gift of synaesthesia, the ability to see auras and a tenuous, inconsistent potential to pick up thoughts telepathically. Unfortunately the time is the mid 1930's and the place is Leicester, England. In this dreary Midlands environment, these abilities are regarded by many as marks of the devil. They have also been known to result in people like Michael being committed to institutions for the insane.
Mike is also a gifted artist, but is rejected by the neighbourhood boys because he would rather paint than join them in rough, tough street games. What gets him in even deeper trouble with his aunts, neighbours, local street gangs and the local church is when he spends his entire summer with visiting Zincali gypsies, from the Basque Territories, people automatically labeled "dirty foreigners."
Despite the many individuals offended by Michael's differences and the campaigns of those who are intent on enforcing his return to the deadeningly homogeneous fold of normality, he discovers he has allies. First there is his mother who was also born with synaesthesia and can still, occasionally, see auras. Secondly, there is Tia Meg a gypsy, whom he initially fears as a witch. Then there is his grandfather who is a quiet sage who teaches his grandson unique and unconventional ways of dealing with some of his problems. Fourthly there is a schoolteacher who is regarded by most of her pupils as a dragon, but whom Mike finds is intent on promoting the differences in each of her students. Finally there is Mike's Phuri Dai, or gypsy grandmother, who reaches across the barriers of age, language and custom to persuade Michael toembrace his differences and accept them as an inalienable heritage.