Coram Boy - Softcover

Gavin, Jamila

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1405212829 ISBN 13: 9781405212823

Publisher: Egmont Books, 2004

Synopsis

A tale of tradition, corruption, strife and growing-up from award-winning author Jamila Gavin. 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. A vivid, challenging and at times harrowing story from the author of the Surya Trilogy, Coram Boy is Jamila Gavin at her very best. 'Brilliant, moving and ultimately compelling' - Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Judging Panel

About this title

About the Author:

Jamila Gavin was born in India to teacher parents and by the age of eleven she had lived in an Indian palace in the Punjab, a flat in a bombed out street in Shepherd's Bush, a bungalow in Poona, near Mumbai and a terraced house in Ealing. Coram Boy won the 2000 Whitbread Children's Book of the Year, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and has been adapted into a highly acclaimed stage play. Her other novels include The Surya Trilogy, Danger By Moonlight and The Robber Baron's Daughter.

From School Library Journal:

Gr 7-9-Mystery, romance, horror, and adventure overlap in this story set in England in 1741. It begins with the brutal work of the "Coram man," a shady character who deals in unwanted children, whom he either abandons, buries, or sells into slavery. Accompanying this evil man is his son, Meshak, who appears to be slow-witted, but who has witnessed the horrifying nature of his father's work. One night, the boy rescues a baby born to Melissa, whom Meshak calls "his angel," and spirits the infant away to the Coram Hospital, a home for abandoned children. A separate story line involves teenaged Alexander, the baby's aristocratic father who is unaware of his son's existence, and his friend Thomas, raised in poverty. Alexander has pursued a career in music, which causes him to be disinherited from his family's fortune. Readers also follow the story of Melissa and Alexander's son, Aaron, who at age eight leaves the orphanage and is apprenticed to a musician, and his black friend, Toby, who is unknowingly apprenticed to the evil Coram man, now disguised as a wealthy pillar of society. Only when Aaron discovers his own musical abilities do the narratives begin to mesh. The author skillfully weaves the various threads together, and the characters are well drawn. While the obscure subject matter and the relatively slow beginning might deter some readers, those who stick with the compelling story will be rewarded with story lines that come together neatly and build suspense until the end.

Kristen Oravec, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Strongsville, OH

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Egmont Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1405212829
• ISBN 13: 9781405212823
• Binding: Paperback