"Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline

Set in Minnesota and Maine in the 1930s and 2011, respectively, Orphan Train weaves together the stories of two orphans, living in the same town, two generations apart. When Molly, a seventeen year old foster kid, steals a book from the local library she finds herself doing community service in an elderly woman's attic. Day after day Molly, and the 90-year-old Vivian sift through boxes of Vivian's things, purportedly to clean them out. In reality, the attic holds a Pandora's box of memories, memories that are not thrown out or donated, but neatly folded, boxed, and labeled while stories are told.

Vivian tells Molly of her journey from Ireland to New York City, her life in the tenements and the tragic night when she became an orphan. She was packed on an orphan train bound for Minnesota. In Minnesota she is at first taken in by a couple who forces her to work as a seamstress in the family business and sleep on a cot in the closet. When the Depression sinks their business, Vivian, then called Dorothy, becomes a "mother's helper," little more than a slave of the Grotes who are a poor and shiftless family living outside of town with too many kids. Her only solace is school and her teacher Miss Larsen. Miss Larsen ultimately saves her from an abusive situation and finds her a kind and upstanding family to take her in. Her name is changed to Vivian and she is gainfully employed at the couple's general store. She gradually builds the business into a thriving enterprise.

As Vivian tells her stories of loss, heartbreak, and ultimately, second-chances, she is at the same time offering a second-chance to Molly. Molly in turn, uses the internet to help Vivian track down and reconnect with long-lost family. In the process this unlikely friendship between a 90 year old woman and a teenager sporting the Goth look becomes a serendipitous chance at redemption for the both of them.

What I enjoyed about this book was its wholesome, neatly packaged conclusion. Every once in awhile you need a book like that to remind you that there is good in the world, that the quest for unconditional love and "family" can be found - even when that family is unconventional or unrelated. There is nothing quite so hopeful as the story of an unloved waif, taken from the streets to a warm and clean home where goodness and compassion gradually build into love.