Orphan Train in The Dusty Bookshelf

May 18, 2014 Anne (Booklady) Molinarolo rated it really liked it

Shelves: winter-2014-15, literary-fiction

4.5 Stars

I actually didn't know about the Orphan and Baby Trains that ran approximately 70 years and carried over 250,000 babies, orphans, and homeless children from the East to the Mid-Western States. The Children's Aid Society ran the Orphan Trains, while the Catholic Charities ran the Baby Trains. The hope was simple: To find a home filled with love that these children would grow up in, attend school, and have a productive & full life. The Baby Trains only placed the babes in Catholic homes. 4.5 Stars

I actually didn't know about the Orphan and Baby Trains that ran approximately 70 years and carried over 250,000 babies, orphans, and homeless children from the East to the Mid-Western States. The Children's Aid Society ran the Orphan Trains, while the Catholic Charities ran the Baby Trains. The hope was simple: To find a home filled with love that these children would grow up in, attend school, and have a productive & full life. The Baby Trains only placed the babes in Catholic homes. Thank God, in 1929 these trains stopped as laws changed and the Foster Care System was born. FCS could definitely use some reform now. As with the Orphans who were treated as free labor, rather a loving family member; some Foster kids are used for the check that he/she brings into the Household.

91 year old Vivian Daly was one of those Orphan Train riders. She experienced maltreatment in some homes before finding her forever home with the Neilsons. Mollie Ayer is almost 18, ready to age out of the Foster Care System. She's having trouble at home and must do a service project by helping Vivian clean out her attic. As the boxes are open and the contents are examined, Vivian relates her story. Molly learns she and Vivian have more in common than she would ever thought.

“I learned long ago that loss is not only probable but inevitable. I know what it means to lose everything, to let go of one life and find another. And now I feel, with a strange, deep certainty, that it must be my lot in life to be taught that lesson over and over again...

“Do you believe in spirits? Or ghosts?...Yes, I do. I believe in ghosts....They're the ones who haunt us. The ones who have left us behind."

"Vivian has come back to the idea that the people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our ordinary moments. They're with us in the grocery store, as we turn the corner, chat with a friend. They rise up through the pavement; we absorb them through our soles."

"The things that matter stay with you, seep into your skin."

The writing is haunting and beautiful. Christina Baker Kline is almost poetic at times. Images in my mind came willingly as I read this wonderful novel. If you haven't read Orphan Train, I highly recommend that you do. ...more

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