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.
This historical novel, winner of the 2000 Whitbread Award, deals with one of the more lurid and fascinating bits of English history. In 18th-century England, a man makes his living disposing of the unwanted children of both rich and poor women. Sometimes he sells them into slavery, sometimes he kills them, and sometimes he blackmails the mothers for years thereafter. He even abuses his own son Meshak, a simpleminded lad. Meshak, who is quite literally haunted by the babies he has helped to bury in ditches throughout the countryside, rescues one special abandoned child: the illegitimate newborn of a young woman whom he has worshipped from afar. He takes the baby to the Coram Hospital, where he is named Aaron, raised as an orphan, and exhibits a prodigious talent for music, encouraged by none other than George Frideric Handel. Years later, the paths of all the participants of the drama-Meshak, his villainous father, the illegitimate child, the child's parents-intersect with electrifying consequences. For when the participants in the original tragedy gather together, "there was not just one truth, because there was not one person there who knew the whole of it." This of course lends the plot structure considerable tension as the readers watch the characters try to unravel things. In her Preface, the author gives historical background regarding the infanticide and child slavery of the era, and the real historical character, Captain Thomas Coram, who devoted much of his life to establishing the Foundling Hospital where abandoned children would be sheltered. The historical setting is presented in enough detail to set the stage but not overwhelm readers with no previous background andknowledge. This is the stuff of high melodrama, and readers of the genre who will be swept along by the theatrics will not be disappointed. (Fiction. 11-16)
