Amazon.co.uk Review
Eighteenth-century England is the setting for
Jamilla Gavin's sweeping saga of growing-up, struggle, tradition and corruption. From an acorn of an idea about a real-life good Samaritan of yesteryear, the author has crafted a satisfying, if occasionally painful, novel that spans the lives of several fortunate and unfortunate young people of the day.
The author has researched her backdrop very well, and the atmospheric sights and sounds of the time are both vivid and captivating. Readers will smell the dirty streets and close-living of urban London, revel in the summer splendour of the finest country houses and then flinch when the harshness of life for the poorest souls is revealed in uncomfortable detail.
For in the late 1700s your circumstance of birth meant everything. Toby and Aaron may both find themselves living at Captain Thomas Coram's Hospital for parentless children, but their histories are as far apart as they could possibly be. Toby has been rescued from a life of slave labour in a faraway country; Aaron is the illegitimate son of the heir to a large country estate. They are watched over by Mish--a simple soul who has been with them since their arrival. His devotion to them is absolute, but his motives are not altogether straightforward. Could this curious man really be Meshak, the son of a wicked child-killer who was hanged at the gallows for his crimes?
Coram Boy is a glorious web of changing fortunes and subtle intrigues. There is tragedy and corruption, hope and evil. Sometimes brutal and sometimes unceasingly bleak, the genre of historical fiction has rarely been this good. It's undoubtedly the kind of book that wins awards. (Age 12 and over) --John McLay
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Otis takes babies and money off desperate mothers, promising to deliver them to the Coram Foundling Hospital in London. Instead, he murders them and buries them by the roadside, to the helpless horror of his mentally ill son, Mish. When Melissa, beloved of Alexander Ashbrook and daughter of his governess becomes pregnant by him, her mother arranges for the Otis to take the child, telling Melissa it was stillborn. Alexander, not knowing Melissa's condition, has fled his home for a career in music. But Mish manages to save Melissa's baby, Aaron, and he grows up with Toby, the son of an African slave, inseparable friends. Toby is a plaything at the house of rich Mr Gaddarn, who is, in fact, Otis. When Mish sees Aaron and Alexander together, and realises the family link, he takes Aaron and Toby to Otis, who rejects them. A way must be found to rescue them, but a great friend must die before the family can be reunited.
Watch the author talk about this book in Windows Media Player format:
by Robert Louis Stevenson
by Louisa May Alcott
by Beverley Naidoo
by Mildred Taylor
by Julia Eccleshare
