I have always been drawn to books about the Orphan train and right now I am in a online book club discussing a book called "Courting Miss Adelaide by Janet Dean"
It was such a fun short, historical book. Usually I tend not to like the shorter historicals, but this one was really good. She weaves a story with romance, history, mystery, and real life issues into this story and leaves you with a really good feeling in the end.
<p> While we have been discussing it, she shared with me a website about the orphan trains, and it was just so interesting to read about the history of them. I did not know that some of the riders of the trains were still alive. This website was very interesting and had stories recounted there of some of the riders. www.orphantraindepot.com It even has links for things to do to use in school lessons if you wish, and true accounts of riders of the train. There are sad stories and wonderful stories!
<p> I have read alot of different books about the orphan trains and they were I think so sad, because often the children were not really orphans, but there was not enough work in New York or Boston for all the immigrants and they did not have money to travel west to other towns, so they sent their children to hopefully find better lives. Sadly, because they were marked then, some people treated them poorly because of the social stigma of being an orphan. Some adoptive parents treated them as slaves rather than members of the family, but yet, as some of the stories share how they rose above this and became strong pillars of society. <p>
Janet has a second book coming out that you can pre-order right now, called Courting the Doctor’s daughter. It comes out in May 2009. You can order it from amazon I believe, but go to website in the link above and check for sure.