The Costco Connection

By Steve Fisher

HISTORY IS LITTERED with the detritus of good intentions. “Orphan trains,” which ran from 1853 to 1929, were an effort to find a better life for children orphaned and abandoned to the streets of New York City. As with many social programs, it fostered both good and bad outcomes for its wards. While some found themselves in decent surroundings, others were treated as indentured servants or slaves.

Author Christina Baker Kline uses this program as the foundation of her novel Orphan Train, a riveting tale of a woman, Vivian Daly, who survived her sometimes harsh past after being transported to the Midwest, and how Vivian’s recounting of her history affects a young woman trying to endure the foster-care system of today.

“[The orphan trains were] started
by a Methodist minister in New York
City, because there were 30,000 children
living on the street in 1854, when it
began,” explains Baker Kline, during a
Skype interview from her home in New
Jersey. “They were dying in huge num-
bers. They were becoming criminals,
prostitutes, joining gangs. There was no
social mobility, and what we think of as Dickensian
London is what New York City was actually like at
that time period.”
The idea was to send children to the Midwest,
offering them to rural families for assistance on
farms and in homes.

“You take into account that these train riders were considered workers in a family,” Baker Kline says. “So, unless they were adopted from really early

Signed book gıveaway

COSTCO HAS 50 copies of Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train, with signed bookplates to give away. To enter, go to: costco connectionbookgiveaway.com.

NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT OR OPT-IN OF AN Y KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.

Purchase will not improve odds of winning. Sweepstakes is sponsored by HarperCollins, 10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022.

Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age

18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household. Entries must be received before the June issue is available online, which will happen around May 25, 2015. Winners will be randomly selected and noti;ed by mail on or before July 1, 2015. The value of the prize is

$14.99. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. Employees of Costco or HarperCollins and their families are not eligible.

FR A NC E FR EEM A N

Pennie Clark Ianniciello,

Costco book buyer Pennie’s pick

Christina Baker Kline weaves a taut tale of upheaval and resilience

Riding the Orphan Train

In our digital editions

Click here to hear Christina Baker Kline talking about Orphan Train and watch a short slide show. (See page 13 for details.)

C OS T CO P H OT O ST U DI O

MY MOTHER AND I had an especially close bond.

The relationship we had, and the knowledge that not all children are as lucky as I was, make this month’s book buyer’s pick, Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline, all the more moving.

Inspired by the real trains that transported orphaned or homeless children from crowded Eastern cites to points farther west more than

100 years ago, this is the ;ctional tale of Molly, who is about to be aged out of the foster-care system, and the elderly Vivian. While helping Vivian sort through her possessions, the two realize they’re not so different after all.

I cannot stress enough how warm and uplifting this book is.

Plus, it inspired me to learn more about the orphan trains, a bit of history I’d known nothing about until picking up this book.

(Item #871973, 5/1)

For more book picks, see page 82.

childhood [as] babies, as some of them were, it was
more common that they weren’t exactly treated like
family members.”
In Orphan Train, 17-year-old Molly Ayer comes
into 91-year-old Vivian Daly’s life in contemporary
Maine to help clean out her attic as part of a com-
munity-service sentence for a minor theft. The
novel then moves back and forth between the pres-
ent day and Vivian’s past. Vivian came to the U.S. in
the early 20th century from her native Ireland, but
ended up on an orphan train after a tragedy befell
her family. The account is riveting and honest. It
feels like a true story, and, to a degree,
it is. Baker Kline immersed herself in
research before writing the book.

“I went to four orphan train rider reunions in New York and in Minnesota,” she says. “I went to Ireland, and “My father is a historian, and he actually warned me that I could research for the rest of my life and never actually start writing,” she explains. “So he said, ‘At a certain point, you just have to jump in, and then know that you’ll be writing your way into a moment when you have to do more research.’ That was how it unfolded for me.”

Orphan Train is very cinematic in style and evokes strong emotions. It did in this reader. And in its author.

“The hard thing about writing fiction is that fiction is all about conflict, but in one’s own life, at least in my case, I sort of shy away from conflict, so it’s hard to move toward it,” Baker Kline admits. “When you write fiction, you have to move toward it, so I was like, ‘Oh, no, I have to write a really big scene right now, and it’s going to be very stressful.’ But that’s part of the job.” C