Three Irish immigrant children are sent to Missouri aboard an orphan train. Despite eight-year-old Maelle's desperate attempts to keep her siblings together, each child is taken by a different family. Maelle vows she will reunite them.

"Tells the story of seven orphans who were settled with families in the Midwest by the Children's Aid Society"--

In the late 1800s, Marianne travels westward on the Orphan Train in hopes of being placed with a caring family.

Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer is close to 'aging out' out of the foster care system. A community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping Molly out of juvie and worse. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly learns 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...

Discusses the placement of over 200,000 orphaned or abandoned children in homes throughout the Midwest from 1854 to 1929 by recounting the story of one boy and his brothers.

"Riders on the Orphan Train is a novel about a little-known piece of American history. Bewteen 1854 and 1929, over 250,000 orphans and 'surrendered' children were 'placed out' across the country. They started their journey in New York and were given away in train stations in every state in the continental United States. This is the story of two children from very different backgrounds, Ezra Duval and Elizabeth Farrell, who find themselves on the same...

Stories of some of the orphans "placed out" from Eastern cities, mostly into the American heartland--who they were, why they went, and what happened to them.