Maine 201 Book Club: Monica Wood

The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood

From 6.30 pm until 7.30 pm

Wood, novelist and memoirist (When We Were the Kennedys), writes about loss, acceptance, and redemption in The One-in-a-Million Boy. When we die, what stories do we leave behind for others to discover? How do our connections continue to grow and help our loved ones to heal?

At its heart, it's a story about the unlikely friendship between an 11-year-old obsessed with The Guinness Book of World Records and a 104-year-old who immigrated from Lithuania to Maine at the age of 4. Assistant librarian Emily Newell insisted this book is a must-read when picking the Maine 201 titles. Get your hands on a copy, join our discussion, and remember: all readers welcome! 

Summary from the book jacket:

“The story of your life never starts at the beginning. Don't they teach you anything at school?”

So says 104-year-old Ona to the 11-year-old boy who's been sent to help her out every Saturday morning. “As he refills the bird feeders and tidies the garden shed, Ona tells him about her long life, from first love to second chances. Soon she's confessing secrets she has kept hidden for decades.

One Saturday, the boy doesn't show up. Ona starts to think he's not so special after all, but then his father arrives on her doorstep, determined to finish his son's good deed. The boy's mother is not so far behind. Ona is set to discover that the world can surprise us at any age, and that sometimes sharing a loss is the only way to find ourselves again.