![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d.gr-assets.com\/books\/1362409483l\/15818107.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYA Book Club recap by Kara Eng, grade 11<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cA nice combination of American history and a look into the experience of orphans and the foster care system. It\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve heard about orphan trains. I\u2019m curious to learn more.\u201d \u2013Kara E., grade 11<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first historical fiction book I actually like!\u201d\u00a0\u2013Madison C., grade 8<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gave me a different perspective to the foster care system, orphans, and the life and challenges they have to go through.\u201d \u2013Mckenna B., grade 7<\/p>\n
\u201cA simple, yet enticing story!\u201d \u2013Liam K., grade 8<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from “aging out” of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.<\/p>\n
Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.<\/p>\n
The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life – answers that will ultimately free them both.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
For March, YA Book Club read Orphan Train<\/em> by Christina Baker Kline, which is also Pasadena\u2019s 2016 One City, One Story selection. It isn\u2019t necessarily written for young adults, but YA Book Club still enjoyed it. While the novel has two narrators, the story mostly\u00a0focused around one of them, Vivian, resulting in most readers\u00a0preferring her story. The second narrator, Molly, acted as a liaison to compare and connect Vivian\u2019s experience as an orphan in Depression era America to a teenager in the modern foster care system. We agreed that Molly\u2019s identity as Native American should have been explored more since it was explicitly emphasized. There was a general consensus of appreciation that Orphan Train<\/em> explored a topic that is not often talked about in American history–the entire practice of sending orphans across the nation on trains to get them out of the cities and to be used as labor. Most of YA Book Club had never heard of this practice before reading Orphan Train<\/em>. Orphan Train<\/em> also had us wondering what we would bring with us if we didn\u2019t have stability in our lives. Unsurprisingly, most mentioned\u00a0that they would bring a book or pet.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nThis meeting was moderated by Kara Eng, grade 11, from the Teen Advisory Board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
YA Book Club recap by Kara Eng, grade 11 \u201cA nice combination of American history and a look into the experience of orphans and the foster care system. It\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve heard about orphan trains. I\u2019m curious to learn more.\u201d \u2013Kara E., grade 11 \u201cThis is the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":2890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,54],"tags":[49,145],"class_list":["post-2787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-teen-reviews","tag-book-club","tag-teen-facilitated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2016\/03\/orphantrain.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ZwbD-IX","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2398,"url":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2015\/ya-book-club-all-the-bright-places\/","url_meta":{"origin":2787,"position":0},"title":"YA Book Club — All the Bright Places","author":"Teen Blogger","date":"October 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 YA Book Club recap by Kara Eng,\u00a0grade 11 For October YA Book Club, we read All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. 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Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/category\/teen-reviews\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/d.gr-assets.com\/books\/1412791447l\/18075234.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3371,"url":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2016\/ya-book-club-the-crowns-game\/","url_meta":{"origin":2787,"position":5},"title":"YA Book Club — The Crown’s Game","author":"Teen Blogger","date":"October 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Book Club recap by Kara Eng, grade 12 The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye Summary:\u00a0Vika Andreyeva can summon the snow and turn ash into gold. Nikolai Karimov can see through walls and conjure bridges out of thin air. They are the only enchanters in Russia, and when the Ottoman Empire\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/category\/teen-reviews\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2016\/10\/crownsgame.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2787"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2808,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787\/revisions\/2808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}