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The Orphan Train Quotes

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The Orphan Train Quotes
The Orphan Train is a novel written by Christina Baker Kline. Kline’s novel illustrates the lives of several different children who were among the many thousands traveling West looking for a family. Vivian and Molly are the main characters in Kline’s novel, Vivian is a “rider” on the Orphan train and Molly is a child in foster care that meets Vivian at an older stage in her life. The Orphan Train portrays the struggle, endurance, and success that Vivian went through in order to survive as a young girl. The historical data shows that the Orphan train moved nearly a quarter of a million children West in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many Children were given opportunities that would have never existed had they not left the slums that they once …show more content…
Larsen guides the reader in understanding the compassion that would have been shown to the many thousands of children coming upon these unforeseeable circumstances. The modern foster care system is much different than the original Children’s Aid Society. Today there are over 400,000 children placed into foster care. The majority of them are no longer the children of immigrants as they were in the late 1800s. Today children are typically placed into foster care because their parents are deceased, there has been sexual abuse, neglect, incarceration, or medical neglect. “There are several reasons why children enter foster care. Sadly, many homes have more than one of the following issues and a child enters the foster care system for numerous reasons”(Carrie Craft). In the end Vivian found a family that treated her well, and provided a good life for her. She no longer had to work long hours sewing or taking care of herds of children that she barely knew. She was able to work in the family store, which she would enjoy doing for the rest of her life. The story of the Orphan Train lets the reader see the many successes and failures of the time period when it came to caring for orphaned children. Many of the children such as Osler and Nailing found success in their new homes and went on to have successful lives and families of their

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