Orphan Train
A Novel
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4.3 • 77 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Orphan Train tells the story of the unlikely friendship between Molly Ayers, a foster-kid hoping to avoid juvie, and Vivian Daly, the elderly woman she has been assigned to help. Shared experience serves to unite them as it comes to light that the aged Vivian spent time on “orphan trains,” which ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest from 1854 to 1929, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. The subject matter will grab students' attention because so few people know about this particularly heartbreaking piece of American history and the novel’s message of resilience and unlikely bonds will carry them through.
Freshman Common Read: University of Alabama (Honors College), University of St. Thomas
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Between 1854 and 1929, hundreds of thousands of orphaned children were herded into rail cars and paraded in front of potential foster parents in remote parts of the country. Novelist Christina Baker Kline follows Molly, a present-day goth teen who’s been shuttled from home to home since she was removed from her drug-addicted single mother’s care. After a run-in with the law, Molly finds herself doing community service with a 90-year-old woman named Vivian. As the two clean up Vivian’s cluttered attic, they unbox the past and discover surprising parallels between their lives. Orphan Train unearths a lesser-known chapter of American history and makes it feel strikingly relevant. With its focus on the healing bond between two very different women with shared experiences, Kline’s story took us on a heart-wrenching—and heartwarming—journey.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kline's absorbing new novel (after Bird in the Hand) is a heartfelt page-turner about two women finding a sense of home. Seventeen-year-old Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer has spent most of her life in foster care. When she's caught stealing a copy of Jane Eyre from the library, in an effort to keep the peace with her stressed foster parents, she ends up cleaning out elderly Vivian Daly's attic. Molly learns that Vivian was herself an orphan, an Irish immigrant in New York who was put on the Orphan Train in the late 1920s and tossed from home to home in Minnesota. The growing connection leads Molly to dig deeper into Vivian's life, which allows Molly to discover her own potential and helps Vivian rediscover someone she believed had been lost to her forever. Chapters alternate between Vivian's struggle to find a safe home, both physically and emotionally, in early 20th-century Minnesota, and Molly's similar struggle in modern-day Maine. Kline lets us live the characters' experiences vividly through their skin, and even the use of present tense, which could distract, feels suited to this tale. The growth from instinct to conscious understanding to partnership between the two is the foundation for a moving tale.
Customer Reviews
Fabulous!!
What a wonderful journey through two very different but similar lives! Highly recommend!!