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

Winner of the Nautilus Award and the New England Society Book Award, this incandescent novel from Monica Wood will find its way into your heart and settle there for good.

Meet Ona Vitkus: sharp-tongued, fiercely independent, and 104 years old. Every Saturday, an earnest 11-year-old boy arrives at her door to help with chores—refilling bird feeders, tidying the garden shed—and to ask questions for his Guinness Book of World Records project. As Ona shares stories from her long, surprising life, something extraordinary happens: a friendship forms across a century of years.

“The story of your life never starts at the beginning. Don’t they teach you anything at school?” Ona tells him. And she would know. Her tales span from first love to second chances, from secrets kept for decades to truths finally spoken aloud.

When the boy suddenly stops coming, Ona thinks she’s been let down again—until his grieving father appears on her doorstep, determined to complete his son’s good deed. Soon the boy’s mother follows. Together, this unlikely trio discovers that sharing loss might be the only path back to themselves.

Good Housekeeping calls it “a must-read…whimsical and bittersweet,” while Shelf Awareness promises “readers won’t be able to resist falling for Ona.” This is the kind of book you’ll want to press into the hands of everyone you love—a story about connection, resilience, and the beautiful unpredictability of human hearts at any age.

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