Coram Boy (Costa Children's Book Award (Awards))

Coram Boy (Costa Children's Book Award (Awards))

By Jamila Gavin

1 rating 1 review 1 follower
Interest LevelReading LevelReading A-ZATOSWord Count
Grades 4 - 8Grades 4 - 8n/a6.383673
2000 Whitbread Children's Book of the Year

Published to acclaim in the United Kingdom, this stunning historical novel delves into a hidden side of eighteenth-century England: the world of infanticide and child slavery. Otis Gardiner, the Coram man, makes a vicious living disposing of the unwanted children and illegitimate offspring of distraught young women, rich and poor. Meshak is Otis's oppressed, simpleminded son, who finally discovers an infant he considers special enough to risk saving out of the hundreds who have succumbed to his father's brutality. The infant's father is Alexander Ashbrook, a brilliant young aristocrat disinherited by his family for his devotion to a forbidden career, who is astonishingly unaware that he even has a son, much less that he has abandoned him.

Around this trio and a host of other characters swirls Jamila Gavin's carefully orchestrated plot, in this disturbing, ultimately uplifting novel about sons and fathers, abuse and abandonment, treachery and devotion.
Publisher: Egmont Books Ltd
ISBN-13: 9781405277037
ISBN-10: 1405277033
Published on 1/1/2015
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 368

Book Reviews (1)

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Coram Boy is a book that is set it in the 18th century and I feel as if this book was really detailed and the writing felt like it was truly from the 18-th century. It is pretty dramatic and somewhat sad about a man who everyone calls the Coram Man. Families give him money and their children hoping that he'll take them to the Coram Hospital to have a good life, but the Coram Man almost never brings the children to the hospital besides a select few. After Mish escaped from his father's brutality and saved one of the children he starts a new life at the Coram Hospital. Overall I think it was a great read even though in certain parts I was slightly confused with the writing.