{"product_id":"orphan-train-easton-press-signed-collectors-edition","title":"Orphan Train (Easton Press Signed Collector's Edition)","description":"\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKLINE, Christina Baker.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eOrphan Train.\u003c\/em\u003e Norwalk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, 2015.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eOctavo. Full green leather. Spine with four raised bands, 22-carat gilt accents. Gilt design to covers. All edges gilt. Moiré silk endpapers. Satin ribbon page marker. 278 pp. \u003cstrong\u003eSigned Collector's Edition. Part of the Easton Press Signed Modern Classics series. Signed by the author on the special title page. Includes signed Certificate of Authenticity, edition card, and bookplate adhered to front endpaper.\u003c\/strong\u003e Originally published New York: William Morrow, 2013.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eBetween 1854 and 1929, approximately 200,000 children — orphaned, abandoned, or simply too poor to be kept — were transported by train from New York and other eastern cities to rural communities across the Midwest and beyond, where they were placed with farm families who took them in for reasons ranging from genuine compassion to the need for cheap labour. The programme was organised by the Children's Aid Society, founded by the social reformer Charles Loring Brace, who believed that removing children from the corrupting environment of the city and placing them in the moral clarity of agricultural life was the most effective form of social intervention available. For many of the children — known thereafter as orphan train riders — the reality was more complicated and more brutal than that proposition suggests. The programme ran for seventy-five years and constitutes one of the largest organised movements of children in American history, and one of the least remembered.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eChristina Baker Kline (b. in England; raised in the American South and Maine) began researching the orphan trains after discovering that a relative had been among the riders. \u003cem\u003eOrphan Train\u003c\/em\u003e, published in 2013, illuminates this largely forgotten chapter of American history through two parallel narratives. Vivian Daly, ninety-one years old, lives quietly on the coast of Maine with the memories of her Irish immigrant childhood and her years as an orphan train rider locked in trunks in her attic. Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer, a Penobscot Indian who has spent her life in the foster care system, is sentenced to community service — cleaning out Vivian's attic — as an alternative to juvenile detention. As the two women work through the contents of those trunks, the novel moves between the Depression-era Midwest of Vivian's youth and the contemporary Maine of Molly's present, finding in both the same fundamental experience: the loss of family, the search for belonging, and the contingency of the identity we construct from what survives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eThe novel became a number one \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e bestseller and has since been chosen by hundreds of communities, universities, and schools as a \"One Book, One Read\" selection across the United States. Richard Russo described Kline as \"a relentless storyteller\" whose \"narrative line is too taut\" to resist. Kline holds degrees from Yale, Cambridge, and the University of Virginia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNear fine. \u003c\/strong\u003eA few very minor imperfections; otherwise fine throughout.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eThis book is currently not on display in store. If you would like more information or to arrange a viewing, please contact: \u003ca href=\"mailto:rarebooks@harryhartog.com.au\" title=\"Harry Hartog Rare Book Department\"\u003erarebooks@harryhartog.com.au\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCatalogue Number: HH000511\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Christina Baker Kline","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49070413152499,"sku":"1110002990366","price":100.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0634\/4284\/5939\/files\/1_0ad0414a-874f-4ac8-98e6-9161b17255f5.png?v=1779069782","url":"https:\/\/www.harryhartog.com.au\/products\/orphan-train-easton-press-signed-collectors-edition","provider":"Harry Hartog Bookseller","version":"1.0","type":"link"}