Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings #20

 
It's Friday . . . time to share excerpts from one of my current reads with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

This week's selection:

   

Beginning:  Prologue

I believe in ghosts.  They're the ones who haunt us, the ones who have left us behind.  Many times in my life I have felt them around me, observing, witnessing, when no one in the living world knew or cared what happened.

 

I am ninety-one years old, and almost everyone who was once in my life is now a ghost.

 

My thoughts:  Such a sad opening, but I've heard so many good things about this book, and one of my book clubs selected it for our November meeting.  I'm only a few chapters in, but I am liking the story so far.

 

 

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56% of ebook:  "I follow her down the hall and through the door into a parlor, where a plump, bosomy woman with a nimbus of downy gray hair is sitting on a rose velvet sofa next to a glowing fire.  She has long lines beside her nose like a marionette and a watchful, alert expression.  'Well, my girl, it sounds as if you've had quite a time of it,' she says, motioning for me to sit across from her in one of two floral wingback chairs."

 

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From barnesandnoble.com:  Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adolescence of hard labor and servitude?

 

As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past.

Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community-service position helping an elderly widow clean out her attic is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall. But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they appear. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past.

Moving between contemporary Maine and Depression-era Minnesota, Orphan Train is a powerful tale of upheaval and resilience, second chances, and unexpected friendship.

Enjoy life with books . . .

 

Catherine
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Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings #20 was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.