Orphan Train

novel—from Niamh Power
     to Dorothy Nielsen to Vivian Daly. How are these changes significant for her? How
     does each name represent a different phase of her life?
     8.  What significance, if any, does Molly Ayer’s name have?
     9.  How did Vivian’s first-person account of her youth and the present-day story
     from Molly’s third-person-limited perspective work together? Did you prefer one story
     to the other? Did the juxtaposition reveal things that might not have emerged in a
     traditional narrative?
    10.  In what ways, large or small, does Molly have an impact on Vivian’s life? How
     does Vivian have an impact on Molly’s?
    11.  What does Vivian mean when she says, “I believe in ghosts”?
    12.  When Vivian finally shares the truth about the birth of her daughter and her
     decision to put May up for adoption, she tells Molly that she was “selfish” and “afraid.”
     But Molly defends her and affirms Vivian’s choice. How did you perceive Vivian’s decision?
     Were you surprised she sent her child to be adopted after her own experiences with
     the Children’s Aid Society?
    13.  When the children are presented to audiences of potential caretakers, the Children’s
     Aid Society explains that adoptive families are responsible for the child’s religious
     upbringing. What role does religion play in this novel? How do Molly and Vivian each
     view God?
    14.  When Vivian and Dutchy are reunited, Vivian remarks, “However hard I try, I will
     always feel alien and strange. And now I’ve stumbled on a fellow outsider, one who
     speaks my language without saying a word.” How is this also true for her friendship
     with Molly?
    15.  When Vivian goes to live with the Byrnes, Fanny offers her food and advises,
     “You got to learn to take what people are willing to give.” In what ways is this good
     advice for both Vivian and Molly? And in contrast, what are some instances when their
     independence helped them?
    16.  Molly is enthusiastic about Vivian’s reunion with her daughter but makes no further
     efforts to see her own mother. Why is she unwilling (or unable) to effect a reunion
     in her own family? Do you think she will someday?
    17.  Vivian’s claddagh cross is mentioned often throughout the story. What is its
     significance? How does its meaning change or deepen over the course of Vivian’s life?
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ALSO BY CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE
    FICTION
    Sweet Water
    Desire Lines
    The Way Life Should Be
    Bird in Hand
    NONFICTION
    The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk About Living Feminism (coauthored with Christina Looper Baker)
    Child of Mine: Original Essays on Becoming a Mother (editor)
    Room to Grow: 22 Writers Encounter the Pleasures and Paradoxes of Raising Young Children (editor)
    About Face: Women Write About What They See When They Look in the Mirror (edited with Anne Burt)

CREDITS
    Cover photographs: young girl © by Yolande de Kort /Arcangel Images; train door ©
     by Marcus Appelt/Arcangel Images
    Author photograph by Karin Diana

COPYRIGHT
    This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn
     from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance
     to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
    ORPHAN TRAIN . Copyright © 2013 by Christina Baker Kline. All rights reserved under International
     and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have
     been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of
     this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded,
     decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage
     and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical,
     now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
     e-books.
    FIRST EDITION
    EPub Edition April 2013 ISBN 9780062101204
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    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Kline, Christina Baker, 1964–
        Orphan train : a novel / Christina Baker Kline.—1st ed.
            p. cm.
        ISBN 978-0-06-195072-8
       1. Women—Fiction. 2. Orphan trains—Fiction. 3. Female friendship—Fiction. I. Title.
    PS3561.L478O77    2012
    813'.54—dc23
2012027409
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