Why a Booktrail?
2004: A hundred and four year old woman meets an 11 year old boy obsessed with world records. Life ambitions on both sides…
The One In A Million Boy
What you need to know before your trail
Ona Vitkus is 104. She has, by her own admission led an interesting life. The day a young scout comes round to help her around the house, she isn’t expecting much. But to the surprise of both of them, they become firm friends. He is obsessed with world records and is particularly keen that Ona should beat one – maybe the oldest person in the world? The oldest woman in the world to drive?
When one day he doesn’t turn up, Ona sighs and presumes that he’s just like any other boy his age. Sadly tragedy has struck and then there is a knock at the door and it’s the boy’s father, Quinn…
Now Ona and Quinn are to face some heartbreaking truths.
Travel Guide
The setting may by Portland, Maine but the real setting is the home of Ona Vitkus, a woman who is almost the oldest woman in the world according to an eleven year boy obsessed with world records. The relationship between her and this boy, a scout, grows when the two spend time together. He helps out at home, and coming from a broken home himself finds himself sharing his hobby of collecting world records. This book of world records he has is like his bible of sorts – this holds all the answers to life as far as he is concerned and he wants to be part of it – if he can get Ona to be part of it all. He might be a ‘medical marvel’ with his love of lists and statistics, but his collections reveal a deep seated gap in his life…
Ona – now she is an expert in life. She has a life story centered around her childhood, growing up in a time where life treated you very differently when you were a woman. Family secrets from Kimball. Maine and Portland where she lived during WW1. Threads from the past weave into a story of regret and nostalgia but with this young boy, she discovers more about herself in the time they have together. She gives recorded interviews, plays cards, help this boy realise his quirky dreams and games.
Quinn, separated from mother Belle who lives in North Deering in Portland, has been an absentee father who comes to Ona to finish off what his son started, they both discover what years of experience and differing ages can achieve in one place – the land of truth.
Booktrailer Review
Clare: @thebooktrailer
This was a touching tale about young and old and the differences as well as the similarities about us. What could an old woman and a young boy possibly find to talk about? Well plenty as it turns out and it was funny and charming and amusing to find out. I liked both of them and although the world records got a bit much at times, this was an eleven year old boy obsessed with them! As they talk and get to know each other, I’m sure Ona was ready on more than one occasion to tell him to be quiet or not so noisy, but she bit her lip and smiled instead.
The surprise for me was when Quinn turned up and I realised what had happened to the boy. Why!?? I wanted their friendship to continue and I didn’t really care for the absentee father. A musician on the road? No excuse. But then he started to talk and share the world that his son and Ona had created.
It was sweet, a bit long perhaps and I didn’t get all the world record references but there is a nice message in this read and the end was heartwarming!
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information:
Web: monicawood.com
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