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Coram Boy
 
 

Coram Boy (Paperback)

by Jamila Gavin (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Price: CDN$ 1.50 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
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Product Description

From Amazon.co.uk

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 alternate Paperback edition.



From Publishers Weekly

In the great tradition of Dickens, British author Gavin mines English history, contrasting 18th-century city life with that of country estates, the wealthy classes with the poverty-stricken. Parallel plots develop as the author introduces charismatic Otis Gardiner, nicknamed the "Coram man" for his role in taking unwanted children off of the hands of rich and poor alike, and his simpleton son, 14-year-old Meshak. But Otis's nickname, taken from a nobler man than he (an actual historic figure, Captain Thomas Coram, who opened a hospital for abandoned children in 1741), is unearned; readers discover as the novel progresses just how he disposes of his charges. Meanwhile, another story emerges surrounding 13-year-old Alexander, on scholarship as a chorister at the Gloucester Cathedral, and heir to the Ashbrook estate. Making brilliant use of an omniscient narrator, the author moves easily in and out of various characters' points of view, most notably that of the emotionally unstable Meshak, whose moral compass points somewhere shy of North, but whose heart is in the right place. Alexander's and Meshak's romantic leanings toward the same young woman thicken the plot. Gavin paints low-life characters every bit as seductively as the high-society variety, and never shows her hand as the disparate threads of her narrative join together into a seamless whole. Ages 12-up.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars Coram Boy, May 12 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Coram Boy (Hardcover)
Set in the eighteenth century, Coram Boy is a story of love, crime, tragedy, heartbreak and miracles. It is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read and one of my all time favourites. I am always reading it aloud, just because the words are so nice. The characters are very clear and made to love or hate. The author shows such depth of knowledge and expresses so much emotion! It is a complex, exciting novel and the end will make you cry! I love it to bits. I'm sure you will to.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Coram Boy, Mar 3 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Coram Boy (Hardcover)
Otis Gardiner is a peddler in London who persuades young women to pay him for bringing their babies to the famous Coram Hospital, a place where unwanted children can receive proper education and have a successful future. However, after Otis got paid, he would kill these babies and later on blackmail the women who entrusted him with their babies for more money. His son, Meshak, saved a baby that he was about to kill and escaped to the Coram Hospital and stayed there for the next eight years. The baby was named Aaron Dangersfield and was very talented in music, like his father, Alexander Ashbrook. Alexander discovered that Aaron is actually his son in a meeting with his wife and sister, but Aaron was already being sent on a ship to America to be sold as a slave. Someone rescued Aaron from the ship shortly after it parted. Finally, Alexander reconciled with his long lost son.
I think this is an unbelievably awesome book. It involved many characters that each has their own small story in this book. For example, Aaron Dangersfield¡s foster father is a simpleton, and he often dreamed of living with the kind angles in the chapels away from his cruel father. Aaron¡s real father was kicked out of his family for living a life as a musician instead of learning how to take care and prosper from his father¡s estates. Furthermore Aaron¡s best friend, Toby, is an African, and he was being treated like a rare, dark-skin plaything more than a human. All of these small stories add up to be what Aaron has to experience or discover, which is what makes Coram Boy extra interesting.
My favorite part of this book is the epilogue. In the epilogue, Meshak was finally able to be with his imaginary angels after all the suffering he went through. He is a simpleton and was being treated cruelly by his father ever since he was born. He doesn¡t really mind being mistreated by his father, but he does feel mad when he saw with his very own eyes that the girl he admired fell in love with somebody else. Therefore, he saved that girl¡s baby boy and loved him like his son. At the end, when even the boy that he cared about so much went away, he asked his imaginary angels, ¡§Can I be dead now?¡ With merely five short words, so much is being remembered and expressed.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Coram Boy, Feb 13 2002
By A 12-year old reader (Cerritos, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Coram Boy (Hardcover)
Otis Gardiner is a peddler in London who persuades young women to pay him for bringing their babies to the famous Coram Hospital, a place where unwanted children can receive proper education and have a successful future. However, after Otis got paid, he would kill these babies and later on blackmail the women who entrusted him with their babies for more money. His son, Meshak, saved a baby that he was about to kill and escaped to the Coram Hospital and stayed there for the next eight years. The baby was named Aaron Dangersfield and was very talented in music, like his father, Alexander Ashbrook. Alexander discovered that Aaron is actually his son in a meeting with his wife and sister, but Aaron was already being sent on a ship to America to be sold as a slave. Someone rescued Aaron from the ship shortly after it parted. Finally, Alexander reconciled with his long lost son.
I think this is an unbelievably awesome book. It involved many characters that each has their own small story in this book. For example, Aaron Dangersfield¡s foster father is a simpleton, and he often dreamed of living with the kind angles in the chapels away from his cruel father. Aaron¡s real father was kicked out of his family for living a life as a musician instead of learning how to take care and prosper from his father¡s estates. Furthermore Aaron¡s best friend, Toby, is an African, and he was being treated like a rare, dark-skin plaything more than a human. All of these small stories add up to be what Aaron has to experience or discover, which is what makes Coram Boy extra interesting.
My favorite part of this book is the epilogue. In the epilogue, Meshak was finally able to be with his imaginary angels after all the suffering he went through. He is a simpleton and was being treated cruelly by his father ever since he was born. He doesn¡t really mind being mistreated by his father, but he does feel mad when he saw with his very own eyes that the girl he admired fell in love with somebody else. Therefore, he saved that girl¡s baby boy and loved him like his son. At the end, when even the boy that he cared about so much went away, he asked his imaginary angels, ¡§Can I be dead now?¡ With merely five short words, so much is being remembered and expressed.
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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
It is 1741; Otis Gardner is the Coram Man, a cruel, sadistic trader who makes his living from the disposal of unwanted infants and by selling older children into slavery. Read more
Published on Sep 27 2001 by Alaria

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
It is 1741; Otis Gardner is the Coram Man, a cruel, sadistic trader who makes his living from the disposal of unwanted infants and by selling older children into slavery. Read more
Published on Sep 27 2001 by Alaria

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