All Aboard!

Not that you have to ride along with me on every reading journey, but tonight happened to be our Face to FaceBook Club meeting. This month we read Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline – a gripping story of friendship and second chances.

The story was fiction but the based on historical fact. None of us in our club had heard about the "orphan trains" that traversed the country for some 70 years, taking parentless or penniless children on the rails to a new, hopefully better, future. A fresh start.

The fiction part: A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, the main character was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance. The book is set in both the present day and the late 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. I won't spoil the plot, but the character's "ride" was quite a life journey.

We all found the whole concept pretty interesting.

The nonfiction part: The Orphan Train Movement was a supervised welfare program that transported orphaned and homeless children from crowded Eastern cities of the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest. The orphan trains operated between 1853 and 1929, relocating about 250,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children. This relocation of children ended in the 1920s with the beginning of organized foster care in America.

A program active for more than seven decades and none of us heard of it?

Seriously, I am getting quite a U.S. history lesson these days. Not all the books I read are so serious in nature. Not by far. But since it was fresh in my mind, I thought I'd share.

If you are riding along with me on the Reading Railroad... I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars. If you a slightly interested in history but mostly want to read an endearing story, you'll enjoy it!

Any book suggestions for me or my club? I enjoy just about anything. Am moving onto a lighter topic now, which I know Lamb by Christopher Moore will provide!