“A compelling story about loss, adaptability, and courage. Freshman Common Read: University of Alabama (Honors College), University of St. 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. 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 growth from instinct to conscious understanding to partnership between the two is the foundation for a moving tale.About the Book 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. 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.
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. 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.
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. 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. Seventeen-year-old Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer has spent most of her life in foster care. Kline's absorbing new novel (after Bird in the Hand) is a heartfelt page-turner about two women finding a sense of home. 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. Beautiful.”-Ann Packerīetween 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. “A lovely novel about the search for family that also happens to illuminate a fascinating and forgotten chapter of America’s history. Now featuring a sneak peek at Christina's forthcoming novel The Exiles, coming August 2020.