Nonfiction November Week 3: Nontraditional Nonfiction

We’re halfway through Nonfiction November! This week our event is being hosted by Becca at I’m Lost In Books! This week our topic is Nontraditional Nonfiction!

This week we will be focusing on the nontraditional side of reading nonfiction.  Nonfiction comes in many forms  There are the traditional hardcover or paperback print books, of course, but then you also have e-books, audiobooks, illustrated and graphic nonfiction, oversized folios, miniatures, internet publishing, and enhanced books complete with artifacts. So many choices! Do you find yourself drawn to or away from nontraditional nonfiction? Do you enjoy some nontraditional formats, but not others? Perhaps you have recommendations for readers who want to dive into nontraditional formats.  We want to hear all about it this week!

I have to admit, I do so much of my reading on my iPad that I don’t even count an e-book as ‘nontraditional’! I do use the internet a LOT to learn more about what I read — Wikipedia and history websites. But I have two favorite nontraditional ways to ‘read more about it’. One of those is to watch documentaries on PBS, Netflix, Hoopla, or DVDs from the library. A few years ago, my book club chose to read A Perfect Union by Catherine Allgor, a nonfiction book about Dolly Madison. While I was excited about the book, we made the mistake of making it a selection just after the holidays, and it was a well-researched by hefty book. I just didn’t have time to read it. Luckily for me, PBS had created a documentary based on the book, and I was able to watch it and pick up enough information to participate in our discussion.

Another example is of how I used Hoopla to supplement my reading. I read The Lost Tribe of Coney Island by Claire Prentice for review. I really didn’t know much at all about Coney Island, so I decided to do some research before I read the book. I found that PBS (yay PBS!) had produced a documentary about Coney Island and that it was available on Hoopla. Now I have to stop and give a plug for Hoopla! It is like Netflix, available through your local library (if your lucky!) The collection isn’t nearly as extensive as Netflix, but it is FREE with a library card, and includes audiobook, music and ebooks!

The second nontraditional nonfiction resource I use extensively is podcasts. I LOVE podcasts for learning. They are so easy to listen to when I am driving or folding laundry. As an amateur genealogist, I have two favorite genealogy podcasts I listen to regularly; Genealogy Gems from Lisa Louise Cooke and The Genealogy Guys with George G. Martin and Drew Smith. I also have a favorite that I go to for history, Stuff You Missed In History Class with Tracy V. Wilson and Holly Frey. After reading I Shall Be Near To You by Erin Lindsay McCabe, I listened to their podcast about Sarah Emma Edmonds, Civil War Spy. And after I read Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline, I listened to their podcast called...wait for it...Orphan Trains!

Your turn! Do you watch documentaries and/or listen to podcasts to supplement your reading? Which ones do you recommend?

Tuesday Memes: Orphan Train

Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where you can share the first paragraph, or a few, of a book you are reading or thinking about reading soon.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Today I am spotlighting Orphan Train by Christine Baker Kline.

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.

Opening Paragraph

    I believe in ghosts. They’re the ones that 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 Teaser

    The morning that we arrived in New York harbor was so foggy and overcast that though my brothers and I stood at the railing, squinting into the drizzle, we could barely make out the ghostly form of the Statue of Liberty a short distance from the docks. We were herded into long lines to be inspected, interrogated, stamped, and then set loose among hundreds of other immigrants, speaking languages that sounded to my ears like the braying of farm animals.

page 25 of 271

Review: Orphan Train

Orphan Train

by Christina Baker Kline

Why did you choose this book? I have heard so much about this one and it really sounded interesting

When did you read this book? July 2013

Who should read this book? readers of contemporary fiction with a historical link
Source: TLC Book Tours

Here is a synopsis of Orphan Train from Goodreads.

The author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be delivers her most ambitious and powerful novel to date: a captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.

Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.

Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers 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 of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.

Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.

My Review 

This book has received a lot of hype this year and has been getting great reviews, so it really caught my eye. I wanted to read it, but as with many books that get so much hype, I was prepared to be disappointed. Fortunately for me, that did NOT happen. This was a very quick (it took me 2 days, including the 4th of July holiday) and a very good read.

This is not what I usually think of as ‘historical fiction’ although it does have a strong historical component. I would think of this more as ‘period’ fiction since much of the story takes part in an earlier period, but it doesn’t really tell a lot of ‘history’ or weave historical events and people into the story.

The story is told from alternating viewpoints in alternating periods of history. Vivian is an elderly widow who was orphaned at a young age, with a lifetime full of memories stored in her addict. Molly is a contemporary teenage, half Indian and growing up in the foster care system, and is on the verge of going to ‘juvie’. The alternative to juvie is to do 50 hours of community service, which she agrees to do by helping Vivian clean out her attic.

Vivian and Molly have a lot in common, having both been orphaned at a young age and bounced from home to home. Because their stories were so similar, at the beginning of the book I had trouble keeping their stories straight and remembering who was orphaned under what circumstance. But I think this was the whole point, to demonstrate how much they had in common, and it straightened itself out pretty quickly. Once I got a few pages into the story, I had trouble putting the book down, and probably would not have if I hadn’t been interrupted by the Fourth of July festivities!

There were really some sad moments in the story, and some frustrating moments, particularly in Vivian’s story. There were a couple of big twists near the end that added to the sadness and made you wonder about the ‘could have beens’. I had never heard about the orphan trains, so this was a great introduction. It is also an interesting way to compare the ‘orphan train’ system to the foster system of today, and to consider how much things may have improved and how much more is still needed. I really enjoyed this story and was sad to have to leave the characters behind!

You can visit the author's website here, where you can access audio book samples, find a reading group guide and learn more about orphan trains. You can also view a book trailer, shown below.

My Rating:  ★★★★1/2   4-1/2 Stars

This book review is included in a tour by TLC Book Tours. I received a copy of the book in return for an honest review, which you can read above.

Below is the complete schedule for the tour.

Tuesday, June 25th: BoundbyWords

Thursday, June 27th: Bibliophiliac

Tuesday, July 2nd: Turn the Page

Wednesday, July 3rd: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Thursday, July 11th: Tina’s Book Reviews

Tuesday, July 16th: A Patchwork of Books

Tuesday, July 23rd: Time 2 Read

Thursday, July 25th: bookchickdi

Thursday, August 1st: Life in the Thumb

Friday, August 2nd: West Metro Mommy

Thursday, August 8th: Literary Feline

Tuesday, August 13th: A Bookish Way of Life

Monday, August 19th: nomadreader

Teaser Tuesday: July 9

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

        

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here’s my teaser!

Mrs. Scatcherd knows as little as we do about whether we'll be chosen by people who will treat us with kindness. We are headed toward the unknown, and we have no choice but to site quietly in our hard seats and let ourselves be taken there.

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline, page 45