review 1: This is a beautiful book about a little-known chapter of American history. From the mid-1800's to the early 1900's, hundreds of thousands of orphans were rounded up from the New York City area and shipped via train to the mid-West. This novel does a wonderful job enlightening the reader of the story of the orphans trains, as well as telling a tale that will truly touch your heart. The story also flip-flops between the story of Molly, a modern day orphan in foster care, and the tale of Vivian as she experienced the orphan train in 1920. These two orphans, both facing tremendous challenges in their childhood, find unexpected friendship with each other. I loved this book, and highly recommend it. review 2: The book was well researched and featured a little known t... moreopic. I only gave it 4 stars because I think it could have been a great book but just fell a bit short. The idea of uprooting children and putting them into uncertain situations half-way across the continent was horrible; the children were often no more than indentured servants. Juxtaposing that against the present day foster-care system was brilliant, but for some reason I got caught up with the orphan train story but was only impatient when it returned to the present. I don't want to give a spoiler, but a significant event and resolution did not ring true for me. Perhaps that is what left me somewhat short of enthusiastic about the book. less
