London’s East End heaves with child prostitutes, hawkers, beggars and thieves. Constance rescues as many children as she can but feels overwhelmed. A solution is offered that sounds perfect – Canadian farmers need workers, their wives want housemaids. Shipping children to this land of plenty offers them a future. Widow, Mary Trupper, is wary, but the promise of a good life for her children is … strong.
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I had no idea of the children who were sent to Canada. It was enlightening that people who really meant to help the children really just took them there and basically abandoned them, not checking on them to be sure they were in a safe environment.
Rather unusual. Was hoping for more from the ending.
I knew when I started this book how it would end but kept on reading anyway. Couldn’t stop myself. The characters were real and precious.
A riviting account of a sad historical reality. Thought provoking and engrossing.
Different and very good,
I was utterly appalled at the total lack of common sense of all the adults in positions of aythority(with the exception of Helen). Even when the children provided irrefutable evidence of abuse and cruel treatment, all the adults were so convinced of their own rightness they never even checked the children’s stories. On the few occasions when they did check, they were completely hoodwinked by the host families. The last straw was the bludgeonig death of the smart, gentle clubfooted Louis by his strong, bullying female mistress. This is a dreadfully depressing book
I enjoyed and felt so sorry for what those poor children had to endure.
This wasn’t the happiest book I have ever read, but it somewhat mirrored the history of my family. My father and four siblings had both good and bad adoptive parents.
very interesting story of early immigration to Canada of the yound children
Good read. The story tugged at my heart. I had hoped the children would find a happy life. I got so angry at the adults and their treatment.of the children.
Homeless children immigrated to Canada from late 1800s London. Although a few were welcomed into good homes others were treated unbelievably cruelly. Although this is fiction there is no doubt that some of it actually could have happened. I found the images of starved, mistreated children staying in my mind after I finished the book.