Orphan Train Essays

Orphan Train a novel by Christina Baker Kline is a beautiful story about a seventeen year old girl named Molly Ayer who has lived in a foster home since she was nine and a ninety-one year old lady named Vivian who accepts Molly into her home and shares her life story with her for a school project.This story shows the hardship, friendship, and loneliness about the two girls that connect with each other.But the story behind the book goes back to the year 1854 when over 200,000 orphans were sent

In 1854, America began what is known as The Orphan Train Movement, which lasted approximately 75 years. The trains moved about 200,000 children from cities like New York and Boston to the American West to be adopted (Brown) . Many organizations opened their doors to these orphans who were mostly living on the streets. The Children’s Aid Society was a much needed organization that helped orphan train riders, but many other organizations competed with the Children’s Aid Society. Organizations started

The Orphan Train Did you have a happy childhood growing up? In the Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline shares the story of an often forgotten and quite tragic part of American history, orphan trains. Orphan trains were a system of trains that ran from 1854 to 1929. They started in New York and took abandoned children to several points throughout the midwest to be adopted. While some children found happy homes, many were placed into homes where they were ignored, abused, or treated as servants.

Life is composed of a bunch of different events, some great and some not so good. For all of the orphans in the world, most of the events in their life fall into the not so good category. Imagine losing your parents and being put into a system you have no control of. In, The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline, she explains the how the system The Children’s Aid Society set up worked. They had very good intentions but unrealistic expectations, most of the kids were placed into bad homes and had

Journal 1: Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline In the novel Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline, the two main characters are two orphans who, because of their shared experiences, find kindred spirits in each other. At the beginning of the story, they are both lost inside themselves, allowing their pasts to dictate their day-to-day lives. This is apparent on page 176 when Vivian explains, “The first twenty-three years of my life...shaped me.” Her first twenty-three are, as Vivian claims, “The

The orphan train was a supervised welfare program that transported abandoned and orphaned children from cities in the United States, such as New York, to foster homes located in the less populated, rural areas in the midwest. Starting around the 1850s, there was a great increase in urbanization. Large, newly industrialized cities became highly populated. The orphan train took children that were abandoned because of increasing urbanization and population and moved them out west. This gave the children

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline is a historical fiction novel that compares the lives of two orphans, Molly and Vivian. Molly is a teenager who becomes an orphan after her father dies since her mother is not allowed to take care of her because her mother is addicted to drugs. Molly has moved to several different homes with many different families and currently lives with foster parents. Vivian, on the other hand, is a 91 year old woman who immigrates from Ireland in the 1930’s after her family

The book Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline was about a girl named Molly who is a considered a Goth at her school. Molly has black fingernails, wears dark clothes, has black clothes, and listens to dark music as well. Molly is an outcast at her school and does not have many friends, or people that like the same things she likes. Molly is having a tough time adjusting to her peers around her. I would rate this book a 6/10 because the author makes this story boring and it is hard for me to follow

co-curricular event that I attended was the Orphan Train book discussion. During this hour discussion, the students broke into groups to discuss the book. Many resident assistants were there to help the students discuss the book and give questions to answer regarding the book and its relation to ourselves and the university. The questions that were given helped give readers different perspectives of the book. By going to the book discussion on Orphan Train I realized that many events that happen in

In the novel Orphan Train, the theme is having your home on your back like a turtle and feeling out of place. The definition of theme is the main message in a story. Molly got a turtle tattoo on her hip to symbolize her life and the struggles she has faced. Some of their struggles are harsher than others. Emotionally, Molly and Vivian experienced traumatic challenges and the feeling of loss. Both of their parents died when they were younger. As an orphan, they had to let go of several

In The Orphan Train a life of hardship and loneliness bring a troubled seventeen year old Molly looking for belonging and acceptance and a lonely ninety-one year old woman with a secret past to find that they have more in common than just cleaning out an attic. Seventeen year old Molly has her gothic looks and vegan lifestyle that her foster parents are fed up with. After Molly is caught stealing a book from the library, she is sent to serve her community service at Vivian’s huge mansion helping

fiction Writing at the University of Virginia. Along with the #1 New York Times bestselling novel "Orphan Train", Christina has also written "Bird in Hand", Desire Lines , Sweet Water and The Way Life Should Be. In addition to her many accomplishments Mrs. Kline is also a recipient of several Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellowships and Writer-in-Residence Fellowships. Kline wrote the Orphan Train because she wanted to bring the world to awareness of the hardships that abandoned children underwent

The Orphan Train was a train that transported orphaned and homeless children from the crowded cities of the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest. Some orphans had a good life after being adopted by good families that love them. Other orphans were adopted by terrible families that didn’t care about them, they just wanted someone for hard work. Orphan Story (Irma Craig) On June 25, 1898 Irma was born to Lyda Steinberg and Walter Craig in Manhattan, NY. When

might think of his death after the civil war. While Lincoln lived a hard life, one thing is true, he was never stripped of his name and forced to ride a train like Niamh in Christina Baker Kline novel Orphan Train. In this novel, Niamh was forced to ride an orphan train after her house burnt, down killing most of her family. Orphan trains carried orphans and poor children from the cities on the East coast to the Midwest to be adopted

Orphan Train Orphan Train directed by William A. Graham was written by Millard Lampell and Dorothea G. Petrie. The film takes you back in time to the year 1854 when there was over 10,000 orphan and abandoned children in New York. During this time some of these children were traveling to the West on the orphan trains to find a family. Emma Symms the main character was played by Jill Eikenberry shows you how these kids are taken from New York to find a better life when she takes a group of orphans

In Orphan Train, by Christina Kline, the reader follows Molly as she helps an older woman, Vivian, clean her attic. Through her time cleaning, she hears stories and sees evidence of what happened throughout Vivian’s childhood. The book follows Vivian’s complete orphan story, while only really showing Molly’s current story as she is still an orphan. Vivian goes through multiple hardships throughout her journey including assault, her husband's death, and struggling to find a true home. Molly feels

of Yale, Cambridge, and the University of Virginia, where she was a Horns Fellow in Fiction Writing. In addition to Orphan Train, her novels include, Sweet Water, Bird in Hand, Desire Lines, and The Way Life Should Be. As of yet she hasn’t received any awards. Kline’s husband, who is a Midwesterner, inspired her to write Orphan Train. The book narrates the real-life story of trains between the mid 1800’s and the early 20th century that abandoned hundreds of thousands of children across the United

Although India’s prosperity seems to be rising quite well, poverty is still evident in some parts of the country. The documentary, Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids, is one that shows the living conditions of the people who live in the red light district. Filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman direct it, although the first person point of view is seen from Briski’s perspective. To get a more intimate look into what it is like to live in the red light district of India, a special group

Vivian is a 26-year-old African American woman. She has been diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and was recently hospitalized for acute psychosis. Vivian believed that people were out to harm her and she was found locked in a room of her house, holding a butcher knife to protect herself. Prior to being placed in the inpatient psychiatric hospital, Vivian lived in an apartment with her mother in Kingston, Pennsylvania. She also is a well known hair stylist at a high-end hair salon. Vivian’s employer

In Orphan Train, the book is about the connection between 17-year-old Molly Ayer and 91-year-old Vivian Daly. The book bounces back and forth between modern day Maine and Minnesota 1929. Molly is a troubled foster child who was put in the system after her dad died in a car accident and her mother was a drug addict. Molly’s foster parents are Dina and Ralph Thibodeaus’. Ralph is kind, but doesn’t stand up to Dina. When Molly really wants a certain book; she steals it from her library, but gets caught