Set in England, it features an orphan traveller or Romani girl,[1] seven-year-old Kizzy Lovell, who faces persecution, grief, and loss[3] in a hostile, close-knit, village community.

The title is an alternative spelling of "didicoy", the Angloromani term for a person of mixed ancestry.

The Diddakoi won the 1972 Whitbread Award in the Children's Book category, honouring the year's best English-language work by a writer based in Britain or Ireland.

Decades later it was adapted as a BBC radio drama of the same name, with Nisa Cole in the lead role.

[5] HarperCollins republished the novel in 2002 under the title Gypsy Girl.