A troubled teenager and a ninety-one-year-old woman discover they share a hidden past
Two orphans, two eras
Molly Ayer is seventeen, a foster child in Maine close to being sent to juvenile detention. To complete community service, she agrees to help Vivian Daly, a wealthy ninety-one-year-old widow, clean out her attic. As they sort through boxes, Molly learns that Vivian was once an Irish immigrant girl in New York who was sent west on an orphan train in 1929.
Who will enjoy it
Readers of historical fiction and book clubs who enjoy moving stories of friendship between generations.
What you will get
A moving, absorbing story of resilience and friendship that brings a forgotten part of American history to life and shows how two lonely people find belonging.
Orphan Train Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Historical Fiction · Orphans · Friendship · American history
Length
278 pages · ≈ 8 h
More about this book
Between 1854 and 1929, orphan trains carried many thousands of homeless and abandoned children from crowded East Coast cities to the Midwest, where they were taken in by families, some loving and many simply looking for free labor. Kline weaves this history into two parallel stories. In the present, Molly, who is part Penobscot and has passed through many foster homes, is guarded and angry, while Vivian is reserved but curious about the girl.
In the past, a girl named Niamh loses her family in a tenement fire in New York and is put on a train to Minnesota. Her first placement is with a family who use her as an unpaid seamstress; her second is a poor, neglectful household where she is in real danger. Eventually she finds a kinder home, and a new name, but carries her losses for decades. As Vivian shares her story, Molly opens up about her own, and the two help each other find answers. Hardship is described honestly but gently.
Short, warm and easy to read. About 278 pages in the William Morrow paperback, with a reader's guide.
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