"Minnesota, 1862: As a woman fleeing from a dark and secret past, Sarah Wakefield leaves Rhode Island quietly and quickly under cover of night for the long journey to Minnesota where she has been advised there is good work to be had. She soon finds a husband who becomes a resident physician for a Sioux town there but the political backdrop of that moment is volatile: white settlers are breaking treaties, Native American land is shrinking, and mass starvation and disease looms over the Sioux community. As the earliest settlers in this area, Sarah anticipates unease and tension, but instead she finds acceptance and kinship. Through the caring Sioux women, Sarah learns to cook, make clothes, speak the Sioux language, and ultimately finds companionship with the women which far exceeds that with her strange and distant husband. But the Sioux aren't receiving what they were promised from the White settlers, and a succession of devastating treaty breaks result in widespread famine, territory loss and conflict. What follows is one of the most influential Native uprisings of all time, the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. As the war erupts around her, Sarah is separated from her husband, and rescued by the Sioux who are seeking safety from the fighting, and ultimately a home that was stolen from them. She will heroically but unsuccessfully try to protect them during the Dakota Trial that ensues. Intimate, raw, compelling and brilliantly subversive, Susanna Moore explores a complicated history of female captivity and Native American suffering"--

Laura and her family move to Minnesota where they live in a dugout until a new house is built and face misfortunes caused by flood, blizzard, and grasshoppers.

"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 luck and chance. This is the story of one such child. As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was 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. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are reminders 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."--Back cover.