Orphan Train
Christina Baker Kline
2013, 273 pages
Fiction
Molly Ayer, a Penobscot Indian, is 17 and is very glad to almost be done with the foster care system, being bounced from home to home. She steals a book and has to do community service to stay out of juvenile hall; 50 hours of helping an elderly woman named Vivian clean out her attic.
In 1929, when she is 9 years old, Vivian comes to New York City from Ireland, and soon finds herself alone, an orphan in a strange city. Vivian is put on the Orphan Train with the Children’s Aid Society. The Orphan Train carries orphans to the Midwest, where they hope to find a family to take them in. But not all are placed with people who will care for them. Some orphans are lucky, but others go to people who take advantage of them, treat them terribly and use them as unpaid workers.
The book switches between Molly’s story in contemporary Maine and Vivian’s tale in Depression-era Minnesota. Molly and Vivian form a friendship and help each other in crucial ways.
This is a moving book about two very different women. What they have in common is that they are both orphans who have suffered tragedies and find the strength to go on.
Note: The Orphan Train really existed. Between 1854 and 1929 an estimated 200,000 orphans were transported to the Midwest to begin life with strangers, with the hope that they would be adopted into new families and have better lives.
Robbin Bailey Concord Public Library
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