Gavin, Jamila. Coram boy.GAVIN, Jamila. Corarn boy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Sunburst. 327p. c2000. 0-374-41374-6. $7.95. SA To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, September 2001: This prize-winning British novel deals with a nasty and brutish brut·ish adj. 1. Of or characteristic of a brute. 2. Crude in feeling or manner. 3. Sensual; carnal. 4. facet of life in 18th-century England--infanticide and child slavery. It is based on fact: in 1741, a well-intentioned sea captain named Thomas Coram Captain Thomas Coram (c. 1668 – March 29, 1751) was born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, UK. He spent much of his early life at sea and in the American colonies. From 1694 to 1705, he operated a ship building business at Taunton, Massachusetts. set up an institution for foundling children, and women of all classes, rich and poor, vied to have their unwanted children taken in there to be raised and trained for work. In this long but engrossing engrossing, in English law, practice of acquiring a monopoly of goods in order to sell them at an inflated price. The offense was ordinarily limited to monopolies of foods. Related practices were forestalling, i.e. novel, an unsavory peddler peddler or hawker, itinerant vendor of small goods. In rural America peddlers carried their packs or drove a horse and cart from door to door. takes advantage of such women, promising to take their babies to the Coram Hospital for a fee, but instead burying most of the little bodies by the roadside. His son Meshak, an awkward, simple boy, reluctantly assists him, but when Meshak falls in love with a pretty teenaged girl he spies on from afar, he leaves his father, rescues the girl's illegitimate ILLEGITIMATE. That which is contrary to law; it is usually applied to children born out of lawful wedlock. A bastard is sometimes called an illegitimate child. son when he is born, and takes the infant off to be raised as a Coram boy. This boy, Aaron, is the son (unknown to him) of a young nobleman who has run away from his family to become a musician. Son and father are reunited "Reunited" was a #1 hit in the United States in 1979 by the Washington, D.C.-based group Peaches & Herb. Preceded by "Heart of Glass" by Blondie Billboard Hot 100 number one single May 5 1979 Succeeded by "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer when as an eight-year-old the boy's musical talent leads him to be apprenticed to the father, now a composer. Despite the evil machinations of the peddler, now a rich and influential man still in the business of buying children for nefarious purposes, the boy and his parents finally find each other and true love prevails. This complex plot with its dramatic twists and turns will draw in YA readers, for the horror of the events described (it begins with the infanticides), for the teenage romance of the would-be musician and the pretty girl and his rebellion against his family's demands, and for her terrible dilemma when she finds herself alone and pregnant. An interesting subplot sub·plot n. 1. A plot subordinate to the main plot of a literary work or film. Also called counterplot, underplot. 2. A subdivision of a plot of land, especially a plot used for experimental purposes. deals with a young African boy, a friend of Aaron's. A rich Gothic tale for lovers of historical fiction. Paula Rohrlick, KLIATT S--Recommended for senior high school students. A--Recommended for advanced students and adults. This code will help librarians and teachers working in high schools where there are honors and advanced placement students. This also will help extend KLIATT's usefulness in public libraries. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion