Every year as part of the Fox Cities Book Festival, there is a book chosen for Fox Cities Read. Fox Cities Read is a program where "the public libraries of the Fox Cities have come together with the goal of building a larger sense of community and to promote literacy"-- Fox Cities Reads website.
This year the book chosen was Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. The ladies at the cookbook club were talking about it one night saying it wasn't as depressing as it sounds. I decided to reserve it for my Nook. It was a phenomenal book. The basis of the historical fiction book was to shed light on orphan trains that took orphaned, abandoned, and homeless children off the streets of New York and other Eastern cities and transported them to new families in the Middle West, usually as indentured servants. However, the book wasn't entirely devoted to Vivian, an orphan train rider. It was also about Molly, a teenager that was coming to age in the Foster Care system. Molly is volunteered to help Vivian clean out her attic as part of a community service sentence. During the time they spend together, Molly learns about Vivian past and in turn Vivian helps Molly through some difficult times.
Before reading the book, I did not know such a travesty occurred in our history...just another piece of history that would rather have been forgotten by the masses. I was quite interested in learning more about Orphan Trains and why Christina decided to write about an Orphan Train rider.
Because Orphan Train was the Fox Cities Reads book, Christina made several appearances at the Festival including a meet and greet cocktail reception at the Appleton Public Library. I was lucky enough to find one that wasn't during the day or conflicted with Jessie Garcia. Tonight, I went to the History Museum at the Castle to hear Christina's final presentation. It was standing room only. I got there about 6:10 for the 6:30 presentation and there were only a few seats left. I did offer my chair to one older woman, who declined and stood the entire time. At least I offered.
My burning question "Why did you decide to write about an orphan train rider" was answered within the first 5 minutes. It turned out that during a blizzard while visiting her in-laws over Christmas in Fargo, ND, her mother-in-law pulled a dusty book off a shelf to try to entertain her grandson when she discovered an article written about orphan trains in Jamestown, ND. (The book was a publication celebrating the town's 100 year anniversary or something.) Her mother-in-law turned the page in that book and discovered her father and his siblings were train riders. No one every talked about it. After extensive research, Christina found this to be common, as the children were instructed to forget about their old lives.
What surprised me was the number of people int eh room that knew an orphan train rider. Like I said before reading this book, I never heard of orphan trains, yet at least 5 people in the room crossed paths with an orphan train rider or a relative of an orphan train rider. Okay so most of those people were much older than I am.
Other surprising tidbits about how Orphan Train Riders were hiding in plain site throughout children's classics:
- An orphan train rider was mention in the Little House on the Prairie Books. She didn't say which one but now I must reread them to figure this out.
-- One of the American Girl book girls' best friend was an orphan train rider. Again not sure which one but based on the time frame of the Orphan Trains (1850s-1920s), it could be Kristen.
--There was a whole children's book series devoted to orphan train riders probably in the 1960s-1970s judging on the lady who mentioned it age.
Thank you Christina for opening my eyes to Orphan Trains and writing such a great book.
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