The saving grace of the book, and why I generously awarded 3 stars, is because it tells a valuable story of how folks in different social circumstances can come together to solve various problems. They meet at the Crystal Palace to-do in chapter 2, and then he re-appears on the paddlewheeler AND on the train heading ease. Carlin should strike up a romance was just too, too obvious. Speaking of cliches, that the shepherdess Miss Symns and the daguerreotypist Mr. Historical fiction weaves threads of truth amid the bigger fictional cloth.if only more of the book was factual.Ĭan we begin with the unlikelihood of the girl passing for a boy while in the close quarters of a baggage car for a couple of weeks? Or should we wonder how likely it would be for a solitary woman to be able to successfully shepherd this group to the middle west? That families in the heartland actually received these children is factual, but were they all such wonderful success stories, as intimated by the book? Were there no disastrous placements, lads whose child labor was merely transferred from Brooklyn to Bloomington, girls who were as sexually abused by lonely men in Des Moines like they had been in the Bronx? I like a fairy tale as much as anyone, but when I want a saccharine morsel, I'll order one. And no doubt the streets of eastern cities like New York were populated with youthful beggars, thieves, and prostitutes whose prospects for a decent life were limited while they were on the squalid city streets. Auguste Kiss's Amazon statue likewise exists, although not in New York City. Southworth and Charles Loring Brace, and they were actual personalities in the orphan train saga. And as is my wont, I looked up some of the named characters, E.D.E.N.

I'd forgotten that the orphan trains started pre-Civil War the inclusion of the runaway Ned brought that back to me. Nevertheless, I was entertained and informed. I'm somewhat familiar with the general premise of the 1854- 1920s orphan trains, so I was looking for something more meaty. As historical fiction goes, this book was somewhat too breathless for my taste.

Orphan train novel