Christina Baker Kline writes a touching, sad yet uplifting novel about a little-known part of American history, the Orphan Train Movement, which lasted from 1853 to the early 1900s with more than 120,000 orphaned or abandoned children placed. Orphan Trains stopped at more than 45 states across the country as well as Canada and Mexico and many of the children were first-generation immigrants from Italy, Poland and Ireland. I was curious from the moment I saw the title. Moving between contemporary Maine and Depression-era Minnesota, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, and unexpected friendship. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they appear. Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adolescence of hard labor and servitude?Īs a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Christina Baker Kline’s #1 New York Times bestselling novel-the captivating story of a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to long-buried questions…now with an extended scene that addresses the number one question readers ask, and an excerpt from Kline’s upcoming novel A Piece of the World.īetween 18, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck.

Orphan train book review