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Orphan Train Girl

Christina Baker Kline · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
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Counting by 7s

Holly Goldberg Sloan · 380 pages

Chosen FamilyFoster CareOrphansMiddle Grade
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The War I Finally Won

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley · 400 pages

When Ada's clubfoot is surgically fixed at last, she knows for certain that she's not what her mother said she was--damaged, deranged, crippled mentally as well as physically. She's not a daughter anymore, either. What is she? World War II continues, and Ada and her brother, Jamie, are living with their loving legal guardian, Susan, in a borrowed cottage on the estate of the formidable Lady Thorto

Foster CareChosen FamilyOrphansMiddle Grade
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Where I'd Like to Be

Frances O'Roark Dowell · 240 pages

A group of foster children build a home of their own. A ghost saved twelve-year-old Maddie's life when she was an infant, her Granny Lane claims, so Maddie must always remember that she is special. But it's hard to feel special when you've spent your life shuffled from one foster home to another. And now that she's at the East Tennessee Children's Home, Maddie feels even less special. She longs f

Foster CareChosen FamilyOrphansMiddle Grade
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Ruby Holler

Sharon Creech · 310 pages

From the winner of the Newbery Award for Walk Two Moons comes a novel for young people about finding love -- and a home -- in the most unexpected of places. Filled with humor, poignancy, cookies, and treasure maps, Ruby Holler is about a special place where it's never too late to be loved.Dallas and Florida have been dubbed the "trouble twins." They have been shuffled between foster families and o

Foster CareOrphansElderly ProtagonistMiddle Grade
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Bud, Not Buddy

Christopher Paul Curtis · 249 pages

It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him: 1. He has his own suitcase filled with his own important, secret things. 2. He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his father was, but

Foster CareOrphansMiddle GradeTrains
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Rush Home Road

Lori Lansens · 433 pages

"When Addy Shadd was a young girl living in Rusholme, she was taught the history of her town, which was settled by fugitive slaves in the 1800s. It was told to her like a storybook legend - and although Addy is forced to leave her beloved home as a teenager, the place will call her for the rest of her life. She thinks of it as a commandment: "Rush home, Addy Shadd. Thou shalt rush home." But the

Dual TimelineOrphansElderly ProtagonistHeartwarming
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Wild Things

Clay Carmichael · 241 pages

Stubborn, self-reliant, eleven-year-old Zoe, recently orphaned, moves to the country to live with her prickly half-uncle, a famous doctor and sculptor, and together they learn about trust and the strength of family.

Chosen FamilyOrphansMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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Hetty Feather

Jacqueline Wilson · 309 pages

A wonderful and original Jacqueline Wilson novel, featuring Hetty Feather(who is a bitch), a Victorian Tracy Beaker!London, 1876 and Hetty Feather is just a tiny baby when her mother leaves her at the Foundling Hospital. The Hospital cares for abandoned children – but Hetty must first live with a foster family until she is big enough to go to school.Life in the countryside is hard but with her 'br

Foster CareOrphansMiddle GradeHistorical Fiction
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Anne of Green Gables

L.M. Montgomery · 308 pages

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

Foster CareOrphansMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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The Orphan's Tale

Pam Jenoff · 363 pages

Sixteen-year-old Noa, forced to give up her baby fathered by a Nazi soldier, snatches a child from a boxcar containing Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp and takes refuge with a traveling circus, where Astrid, a Jewish aerialist, becomes her mentor.

Chosen FamilyFoster CareOrphansHistorical Fiction
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Nancy and Plum

Betty MacDonald · 160 pages

OrphansFoster CareMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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The Language of Flowers

Vanessa Diffenbaugh · 322 pages

Victoria Jones spent her childhood moving from foster home to foster home. She believes she is damaged beyond hope and trusts nobody, connecting with the world through message-laden bouquets. Her messages are never understood until one day a man in a flower stall responds in kind.

Foster CareDual TimelineOrphansFemale Lead
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The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips

Michael Morpurgo · 192 pages

When Boowie reads the diary that his grandmother sends him, he learns of her childhood in World War II England when American and British soldiers practiced for D-Day's invasion in the area of her home, and about her beloved cat, Adolphus Tip, and the cat's namesake.

Dual TimelineElderly ProtagonistMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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Summer of the Gypsy Moths

Sara Pennypacker · 288 pages

A foster child named Angel and twelve-year-old Stella, who are living with Stella's great-aunt Louise at the Linger Longer Cottage Colony on Cape Cod, secretly assume responsibility for the vacation rentals when Louise unexpectedly dies and the girls are afraid of being returned to the foster care system.

Foster CareMiddle GradeElderly ProtagonistHeartwarming
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Peace, Locomotion

Jacqueline Woodson · 147 pages

Twelve-year-old Lonnie is fi nally feeling at home with his foster family. But because he's living apart from his little sister, Lili, he decides it's his job to be the "rememberer"—and write down everything that happens while they're growing up. Lonnie's musings are bittersweet; he's happy that he and Lili have new families, but though his new family brings him joy, it also brings new worries. Wi

Foster CareOrphansMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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Caught in the Act

Joan Lowery Nixon · 150 pages

Eleven-year-old Michael Patrick Kelly from New York City is sent to a foster home, a Missouri farm with a sadistic owner, a bullying son, and a number of secrets, one of which may be murder.

Foster CareOrphansMiddle GradeHistorical Fiction
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Before We Were Yours

Lisa Wingate · 424 pages

In this poignant novel, inspired by a true story, two families, generations apart, are forever changed by a heartbreaking injustice. Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family's Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge until strangers arrive

Dual TimelineFoster CareOrphansHistorical Fiction
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The Calamity Club

Kathryn Stockett · 638 pages

Oxford, Mississippi, 1933. Abandoned by her mother one Christmas Eve, eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Now one of the unadoptable "big girls" at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed. Birdie Calhoun, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford to ask her socialite sister to help the struggling family she’s le

Chosen FamilyOrphansHeartwarmingHistorical Fiction
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Gossamer

Lois Lowry · 150 pages

While learning to bestow dreams, a young dream giver tries to save an eight-year-old boy from the effects of both his abusive past and the nightmares inflicted on him by the frightening Sinisteeds.

Foster CareElderly ProtagonistMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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Wonderstruck

Brian Selznick · 639 pages

Expanding upon the genre-breaking form he invented in his trailblazing debut novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick creates another awe-inspiring and multi-layered reading experience. Wonderstruck weaves together two compelling,independent stories, set fifty years apart. Ben's story, which takes place in 1977, is told in words; Rose's story in 1927 is told in pictures. Ever since his

Dual TimelineOrphansMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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Runaway

Wendelin Van Draanen · 256 pages

"It's a cold, hard, cruel fact that my mother loved heroin more than she loved me."Holly is in her fifth foster home in two years and she's had enough. She's run away before and always been caught quickly. But she's older and wiser now--she's twelve--and this time she gets away clean.Through tough and tender and angry and funny journal entries, Holly spills out her story. We travel with her across

Foster CareOrphansMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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The Orphan of Ellis Island

Elvira Woodruff · 192 pages

During a school trip to Ellis Island, Dominick Cantori, a ten-year-old foster child, travels back in time to 1908 Italy and accompanies two young emigrants to America.

Foster CareOrphansMiddle GradeHistorical Fiction
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Bo at Ballard Creek

Kirkpatrick Hill · 304 pages

Chosen FamilyMiddle GradeHeartwarmingHistorical Fiction
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Before Green Gables

Budge Wilson · 389 pages

Foster CareOrphansMiddle GradeHistorical Fiction

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