Melissa Crytzer Fry's Reviews > The One-in-a-Million Boy

--4.5 to 4.75--

I thoroughly enjoyed this book – from the spunky 104-year-old Ona Vitkus and the young boy, so clearly different from his peers – to the physical structure of the book, which included scenes, as well as taped interviews of the woman as she responded to the boy’s questions, plus various lists of world record facts. The parents of the boy (whose name we never learn – making him that much more ethereal), Quinn and Belle, are also well-drawn, flawed characters.

Ona and the boy are so thoroughly characterized with incredible language:

Ona, when viewing an elderly World Record holder:
She looked at the woman’s picture again – taken on the poor thing’s one-hundred-twentieth birthday. “That face could halt an anvil in mid-drop,” she muttered.

Ona’s observations about the Boy:
… His hopping around the kitchen last week had rattled her. He didn’t move the way other children moved – he carried a marionette-ish precision in his wrists and shoulders – and it had made her feel sorry for him.

Monica Wood’s writing is assured and lovely, and Ona’s observations will frequently have you laughing out loud. The skill with which Wood writes the one-sided responses on the tapes is mesmerizing, and her knowledge of music is laudable as well.

In the end, this is a tender upmarket-to-literary story about friendship, love, forgiveness, the things that inspire us to dream and the power of harnessing those dreams. It’s also a story about the impact a single person can have on a life. It was the perfect read for me on my treadmill – transporting me to a different world filled with heartache, happiness, love and discovery. Also a bit of a surprise was the mention of a genetic rarity, which my mother actually has.