Skip to main content

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline is the first book by this author that I've read.  I'm not sure how I first came across it, but it's been on my books-to-read list for a while.  Recently my library acquired a copy, and since I was between books, I thought, hmm, let me try this one and see if it sticks.  Sometimes when I'm between books I have a problem starting and actually sticking with a book to the end.

The historical part of the story of Orphan Train is actually inspired by true events.  There really was a train in the 1920's that took orphaned children from the Children's Aid Society in New York City out to the Midwest in a quest to find families to place them in.  Some of these children are still alive today.  However, I don't think that the characters of Molly and Vivian are based on any real life people.

Molly Ayer has spent the last nine years bouncing among over a dozen different foster homes.  She's developed a tough shell and a hard edge to protect herself from the many ways both the adults in her life and the system has let her down.  She's learned that it's just easier to expect the worst rather than be bitterly disappointed or heartbroken.  And when people, both adults and teenagers, first meet Molly they judge her on appearances and the fact that she's a foster child--and they expect the worst from her.

Vivian Daly, a nonagenarian, agrees to let Molly work off her community service hours by organizing the contents of Vivian's attic.  A woman who is no stranger to heartache, Vivian has more in common with Molly than either woman initially realizes.  As Molly works on the attic with Vivian, Vivian and Molly open up to each other about the experiences they've had to survive during their respective childhoods and a bond is forged between them over the many hours spent organizing the attic.

In alternating chapters of lyrical writing that flip between present day Maine and Vivian's formative years ranging form 1929 to 1943, we learn about Vivian's childhood.  Born into poverty to parents ill suited to care for her and her siblings and raised in a family in which dysfunction becomes the norm, Vivian's childhood is one string of harrowing heartbreaks and tragedies.  After Vivian's family emigrates from Ireland to New York City, an apartment fire kills her father and siblings and her mother, unable to cope with the grief, is institutionalized.  Vivian, for all intents and purposes an orphan, is sent to the local Children's Aid Society where social workers care for orphaned children.  Soon the social workers take a group of orphaned children ranging in age from infant to nine years old on a train bound for the Midwest.  Commonly called an orphan train, it's often the children's last chance at being adopted into a family.  But for orphans as old as Vivian, finding a family is rare and a difficult and sometimes treacherous endeavor.  In her first few years in the Midwest, Vivian is transferred through a series of three different homes--each successively worse than the one before.  Finally she is matched with a family who will provide her a safe place to live--although she will never view them as 'her people.'

While I was reading this book, I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop for Molly, but it never did.  The drama in that part of the story stayed on a low simmer throughout the book and Molly's story in that respect wasn't very well developed.  Then I got to the end of the book, and I thought, that's it?  In some respects I think it was a bit of a non-ending, and I was left with the feeling that this is a book in which nothing really happens.  I've read and reviewed books on this blog that have given me a similar feeling of well, what was the point because nothing happened.  In the end I think the historical element of the orphan train was interesting and the writing of the chapters told from Vivian's perspective is lyrical, matter of fact and at times heartbreaking.  If you enjoy reading historical fiction, you will enjoy this book.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

Comments

I felt the same way about the ending. Thanks for posting. I will be posting my thoughts tonight. I thought the part about the computer was a bit far fetched. It came from left field. There wasn't any mention of interest of the computer. I thought that part was strange.
I finished today and enjoyed it.

http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2015/03/book-orphan-train-2013-christina-baker.html

Popular posts from this blog

How To Be A Heroine: Or What I've Learned From Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis

I feel as if I could write a book subtitled "What I've Learned From Reading Too Much" except all my lessons would be culled from Greek mythology, the Babysitters' Club, the lives of British queens, crime mysteries, suspense thrillers and celebrity and entertainment gossip.  I first ran across How To Be A Heroine by Samantha Ellis in an ad in BookPage.  The title sounded intriguing and once I looked it up on Amazon, I was in for reading it.  It reminds me of the literacy autobiography writing assignment that I had in one of my English composition classes in college--except this is the literacy autobiography on steroids. The premise of this book is that the author revisits the seminal texts that she read in her youth by examining the lessons and impressions of the novels that she had upon her first readings when she was younger.  Ellis has then re-read the novels as an adult specifically for the writing of her own book to see if the novels hold up to her original i

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

I'd previously read John Sandford's first Virgil Flowers novel, Dark of the Moon , a few years back and found it to be a quick, well written read.  Recently I discovered he has since written three more Flowers titles and decided to start with the second title and read through to the fourth and most recent one.   Heat Lightning is the second Flowers installment.  The darkness of the crimes committed that must be solved in the novel are leavened by the lighter presentation of Flowers and the story.  It works well together--a dark crime doesn't always need dark prose to back it up. Virgil Flowers is Lucas Davenport's go to man in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension when there's a sensitive, tough or otherwise puzzling case to solve.  Flowers has a high clearance rate and can often turn around a case in about a week.  This  particular case is especially perplexing with quite a few red herrings thrown into the mix to throw everyone--Flowers and the reader in

The Whisperers by John Connolly

If there was one thing Jimmy didn't care for, it was competition, ... There were some exceptions to that rule: he was rumored to have a sweet deal with the Mexicans, but he wasn't about to try to reason with the Dominicans, or the Columbians, or the bikers, or even the Mohawks. If they wanted to avail themselves of his services, as they sometimes did, that was fine, but if Jimmy Jewel started questioning their right to move product he and Earle would end up tied to chairs in the [bar] with pieces of themselves scattered by their feet, assuming their feet weren't among the scattered pieces, while the bar burned down around their ears, assuming they still had ears. from page 86 The Whisperers is John Connolly's newest Charlie Parker installment in which some beloved characters reappear and in which previous characters from another Parker installment reappear to shed further light on the big baddie that may or may not be coming for Parker in the future. This newest inst