_The Orphan Train_
by Christina Baker Kline
She'd wanted a copy of _Jane Eyre_ of her own for some time, but was receiving
no allowance from Ralph and Dina. Nor was she able to keep a proper job going
now that she was in her senior year in high school. So, when she found that the
library had three copies, one a fine hardback in good condition, she decided to
help herself to the battered paperback copy they had, the one she knew she might
have to pay a dime for had she found it at a yard sale. But the book was
tagged, and Molly was in trouble. When she was told her choice was to either
spend time in juvie for trying to steal a library book or to do fifty hours of
community service and then have her record expunged, of course she chose the
latter. But was helping old Mrs. Vivien Daly in the big house on the other side
of the island going to work out? What would a seventeen-year-old half Indian
girl and a ninety-year-old widow lady have in common?
Rather a lot, or so it proved. Molly had lost her father at age seven and had
been a ward of the state, bouncing from foster placement to foster placement,
since nine. And she learned that Vivien Daly, who'd been born Niamh (pronounced
neev) Power, had also lost her family at the same age, and was taken from an
orphanage west on one of the Orphan Trains in 1929 to hopefully find a new home
in Minnesota. But she, too, found abuse and exploitation, so much so that when
she was finally placed in a home where she was accepted she could not truly fit
in, even when she was adopted.
And so a school project and a community service project came together for Molly,
who in learning Vivien Daly's life story found the means to deal with her own.
Truly a thought-provoking book. I found it in paperback at Costco, and have
found it is available in audio format through Audible. I was fascinated by it
and could not put it down. Definitely worth the read!
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large
"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very
wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
"Don't go where I can't follow."
We gave the Goblin King control of our nation!
