The One In A Million Boy: Monica Wood review

The One In A Million Boy

by Monica Wood

Rating: 4 Star

This is a story of friendship between an 11 year old scout and a 104 year old lady called Miss Ona Vitkus, set in the United States.

The "boy" as Miss Viktus refers to him during the first few chapters has been assigned to help her with household chores as part of his scout work. During these weekly visits he tops up her bird feeders, tidies the lawn, and afterwards they eat cookies and talk.


It doesn't take long for Miss Viktus to discover his love of Guinness World Records (and for putting things in the world in order generally). By sharing their respective life stories, they are soon on their way to becoming fast friends and eventually hatch a plot to break a  world record or two of their own.

However, one week the boy doesn't show and 2 weeks after that Quinn Porter, the boy's father appears to inform Ona that he would be finishing off his son's chores. It is only then that we begin to learn what has happened to Ona's newest friend.

The story is truly heart-warming and I enjoyed it a lot. The developing friendship between Ona and 'the boy' was really well done and the other characters are also well described. Monica Wood makes us care for each of them very early on in the story, which makes some of the twists and turns more emotional later on in the plot.

I received a copy of this work from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I rated this novel as 4 out of 5 stars.