For readers who enjoyed the historical aspect of Coram Boy, Ruth K. McClure's nonfiction work Coram's Children: The London Foundling Hospital in the Eighteenth Century (1981) discusses the origins of the institution and its effect on English treatment of orphans. Other works depicting the despair of English orphans and slums include the classic novel Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens. Here Dickens tells the story of a young orphan boy who turns to a life of crime before being rescued by a generous benefactor. Readers interested in a modern twist might wish to check out Melvin Burgess's 1996 work The Baby and Fly Pie. Set in a future London, the orphan Fly Pie survives life on the gritty streets by digging in rubbish heaps. One day he discovers a stolen baby, a child whose safe return is worth a seventeen million pound reward. Together with his sister...