Orphan Train tells two stories set in two time lines. In 1929, we have nine year old Irish immigrant Niamh whose parents and siblings die in a horrific accident; in present day, we have seventeen year old foster child, Molly, who has struggled to fit in with her recent set of foster parents. Niamh is put on a train by the Children’s Aid Society and sent across the United States to find a family to adopt her. Unfortunately, the adoptions are handled more like cattle […]
Premise of US orphan history: awesome. Book: less awesome.
This was the first selection of the new year for my book club, chosen somewhat for length, something short to start off the year, and because there were book club questions in the back of the book. I have picked books to read for worse reasons, so away we went. Though fiction, this book is the fictionally telling of what to me was an unknown part of American history From 1854 to 1929, orphan children in New York were placed on trains by a group […]