The Unexpected Life of Oliver Cromwell Pitts: Being an Absolutely Accurate Autobiographical Account of My Follies, Fortune, and Fate

High adven­ture from a mas­ter sto­ry­teller about one boy’s attempt to fend for him­self among cru­el orphan mas­ters, cor­rupt mag­is­trates, and con­niv­ing thieves.

In the sea­side town of Mel­combe Reg­is, Eng­land, 1724, Oliv­er Cromwell Pitts wakes to find his father miss­ing and his house flood­ed by a recent storm. He’s alone in his ruined home with no mon­ey and no food. Oliver’s father has left behind a bare­ly leg­i­ble water­logged note: he’s gone to Lon­don, where Oliver’s sis­ter, Char­i­ty, is in trou­ble. Explor­ing dam­age to the town in the storm’s after­math, Oliv­er dis­cov­ers a ship­wreck on the beach. Remov­ing any­thing from a wrecked ship is a hang­ing offense, but Oliv­er finds mon­ey that could save him, and he can’t resist the temp­ta­tion to take it. When his crime is dis­cov­ered, Oliv­er flees, fol­low­ing the trail of his father and sis­ter. The jour­ney is full of thieves, adven­tur­ers, and treachery–and Lon­don might be the most dan­ger­ous place of all.

In the tra­di­tion of his New­bery Hon­or book The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle, Avi mix­es high adven­ture and short, page-turn­ing chap­ters with a vivid his­tor­i­cal set­ting fea­tur­ing a cast of high­way­men, pick­pock­ets, and vil­lain­ous crim­i­nal masterminds.