“So is it just human nature to believe that things happen for a reason—to find some shred of meaning even in the worst experiences?’’ Molly asks when Vivian reads some of these stories aloud.
I’m revisiting some old favorites this month. I heard Christina Baker Kline at the San Miguel’s Writers’ Festival last February 2024 in SMA and was moved by what a loyal following she had for this book. I became an instant fan. Because I spent a lot of my childhood growing up in strangers’ houses, I felt compassion for the lonely, fearful, abandoned and vulnerable children in this book; who are suddenly orphaned due to illness, violence or misadventure. Kline came upon the idea for her book during a snowstorm in Dakota. Housebound at her mother-in-law's home she read some old articles, where she discoverd a family member had been just one of these orphans. The book refers to a movement between the 1850s and 1920s, started by a Methodist minister, to get child vagrants and homeless street urchins off the streets of New York by shipping them on trains to new families in the mid-west. Although these orphans of circumstance were promised new homes and families, most were farmed out as indentured workers and servants. This book addresses an important piece of American history. A great #hf, historical fiction summer read if you haven’t checked it out already.
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