Customer Reviews

Circle of Love (Orphan Train Adventures)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This story is about a 19 year old girl name Frances Mary Kelly. She lives in Kansas. She is a school teacher. She knows a man name Johnny. They go to the church together. One day she met up her friend, Andrew. He wanted her to take a boy name Stefan to New York. So she went to the store to buy things for her trip. She surprised Johnny because he didn't know about her trip to New York. She boarded the train with Stefan to New York. When they got there, Stefan was very happy to see his aunt and uncle.

Then Frances met a woman name Mrs. Hunter in New York. Frances told Mrs. Hunter that she wanted to visit her old neighborhood. When she got there, she was surprised and upset to see that everything had changed. It was looking like a junk yard now. When she got back from her sad trip, Mrs. Hunter wanted her to take many orphan children to different train stops, to find parents who would adopt them. She took all the children to the train station. They all got in the train. She met a man name Seth in the train and he helped her by getting food and milk for everyone. During the night time, when all the kids were sleeping, Frances and Seth got to know each other. In the morning, Seth's brother came next to the train on a horse. Seth took one of the children as hostage. Then Frances ran towards the child and tried to pull him inside the train. Seth let go of the child and jumped off the train, onto his brothers horse and rode away. Frances sent a telegram message to the sheriff, notifying him that seth and his gang are on the way to rob a bank. When Frances reached the train station, sheriff told her that he chaught the gang except Seth.

Frances and the children went with sheriff to the church for the adoption meeting. Frances described to all the people in the church about the Children Aid Society. Also told them about the children she had with her. After that, each parent came and adopted a child they liked. Most of the children were adopted by someone. Frances took the remaining children to the train station for the next place for adoption.

After all the children were adopted, Frances still had one child left name Eddie. Frances took Eddie to her mom's place and her mom liked him a lot. She took Eddie to her home in Kansas and met up with Johnny. They both got married and adopted Eddie for their son.

I read the original Orphan Train Quartet when I was a child, and I don't remember it very well, although I do remember liking it. The original quartet has since grown into a series. If "Circle of Love" is any indication, however, Joan Lowery Nixon should have left well enough alone.

Readers who aren't familiar with the plot of the first few Orphan Train novels may have trouble becoming involved in the story; though it's not too difficult to figure out what you need to know, this book is definitely written with an assumption that readers will most likely have read the rest of the series. In "Circle of Love," Frances Kelly, protagonist of the first novel in the series, is back, now grown up and working as a schoolteacher - and wondering if her beloved Johnny will ever propose marriage. The time he spent in a Confederate prison during the Civil War has left him full of anger and bitterness, and when Frances gets an opportunity to spend a few weeks chaperoning orphans for the Children's Aid Society, she feels some time away from Johnny will help her sort out her feelings. Her focus is on seeing the children under her care placed in good foster homes, but a stranger she meets on the train, by turns mysterious and charming, soon takes her journey off in a direction she never expected.

This is feel-good history. Frances is annoyingly optimistic, repeatedly encouraging deeply troubled and traumatized people to put the past behind them and look on the bright side, as if it were really that simple. Nixon pays lip service to the grittier realities of the orphan train experience - foster families looking for cheap labor, children abandoned by parents and torn from siblings - but ultimately she glosses over them in favor of happy endings; even unsatisfactory outcomes must be laden with promise in this treacly-sweet confection of a novel. A side-plot involving a gang of robbers is distracting and elevates the novel beyond any realm of believability, and the ending was so pat and contrived it made me cringe. If only real life were always this hunky-dory.

If you're interested in the orphan trains, try "The Journey Home" by Isabelle Holland or "Rodzina" by Karen Cushman. Holland and Cushman know how to tell a story that is exciting and ultimately uplifting without resorting to extravagant plot twists and excessive sweetness.

A disappointing end to the orphan train series. It's now 1866 and Frances Mary concludes the story which began in 1860. Frances is now 19 years old and hoping to marry Johnny a boy she grew up with. However, he is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after spending years in a Confederate prison during the Civil War. She wants him to forget his unhappy past and look to a future with her. Unfortunately, Johnny wants to hold off on marriage until he is well both mentally and physically. Therefore in anger, Frances decides to travel to New York City and help with the Orphan Train, coming full circle from the first book, A Family Apart.

What was disappointing is that non of the Kelly children make an appearance and the plot follows the same path as previous books. We learn that Mike went out west at 17. But did he reenlist in the war as he promised? Did he find gold or excitement in California? Megan, 18 is smitten with a boy in her hometown. Did she become a teacher like Frances? Was she ever reunited with her family? Little is said about poor Petey now 12. Frances took great pains to be placed with him in the first book, but throughout the series he is never seen nor discussed by the family. Why then did Nixon write him in? Peg, 14, is still one-dimensional and little is mentioned about the aftermath of Danny's death and its effect on her.

What we do get is a flat story about a new set of children sent out west and bank robber thrown in. At 19 Frances Mary is written exactly how she was at 13. She annoyingly refuses to look at any of the negative aspects of life yet manages to both get her boyfriend back and turn a member of Jesse James' gang to the "good side". On the plus side, the children in Frances' care are likable and sets up for Nixon's later spin off series on them. In the end Frances and Johnny marry and decide to adopt Eddie, an orphan that no one else wanted.

Thank you, for still carrying this book! I enjoyed this novel as a child and then lent it to somebody who then lost it; as I am getting older and getting ready to start teaching this will be a great addition to my library.

I thought this was I great but sad book. It is about Frances Mary that rides the train from New York to Missouri on the train that took her and her brothers and her sisters to there foster parents. On her way home she takes 30 orphans to missouri to be adopted. This is a story of both adventure and tradigy.

This story is aboout a 19 year old girl namw Frances Mary Kelly. She lives in Ksansas. She a schoolteacher. She know a man name Jonney. They do alot of thing together. One of the thing that they do is that they go to the church together. One day she met up with an old friend. He wanted her to take a boy to New York. So she went to the store and got a few thing for her trip. She surprise Jonney because he didn't know about this. So she boarded the train to New York. When they got there he was very happy to be with his aunt and uncle. Then shee met a woman name Mrs.hunter. She ask her if she can see her old neighborhood. When she got there she was wondering what happen