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. She lives outside of New York City with her husband and three sons, and spends as much time on the coast of Maine as possible.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. Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train ($14.99) is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.Ĭhristina Baker Kline is the author of five novels, including The Way Life Should Be and Bird in Hand. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life.

A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. Just months from 'aging out' of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse. Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. The author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be delivers her most ambitious and powerful novel to date: a captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask

Orphan train author