Nine-year-old Ethan Cooper has managed to keep his family together for a year in a Pennsylvania orphanage. Now he and his siblings are boarding a train headed west. He can't help but worry: Mr. and Mrs. Rush in Nebraska have agreed to adopt all four Cooper children, but what if they change their minds? In the meantime, Ethan and his siblings encounter their first dust storm, explore train cars, and watch friend after friend leave with new parents....

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

Nineteen-year-old Frances Mary Kelly, herself an orphan train rider six years before, returns to New York and agrees to escort a group of orphans west to find new homes.

"With his mother dead, his father gone, and his older brothers and sisters unable to help, eight-year-old Ethan Cooper knows it's his responsibility to keep his younger siblings together--even if that means going to an orphanage. Ethan, Alice, Simon, and Will settle into the Briarlane Christian Children's Home, where there's plenty to eat, plenty of work, and plenty of talk about a Father who never leaves. Even so, Ethan fears losing the only family...

Sent away on an orphan train by his self-centered father Jessie, Will keeps hoping Jessie will return to claim him, even though the people he lives with care for him far more.

"Montana 1925: An Irish boy orphaned by Spanish flu, a tiny girl who won't speak, and a volatile young man who lies about his age to escape Hell's Kitchen are paraded on train platforms across the Midwest to work-worn folks. They journey countless miles, racing the sun westward. Before they reach the last rejection and stop, the oldest, Charles, comes up with a daring plan, and alone, they set off toward the Yellowstone River and grassy mountains...

Kenny Clark knows Santa is magical and only he can find his family. Kathleen Collins fights poverty and desperation every day in her bid to find new homes for the orphans of New York. But what about her happy ever after? Can the magic of Christmas bring happiness at last?

"Take a journey to Ireland, where Lily and Charlie find themselves on an adventure. Meanwhile, back at the Sanctuary in New York, Kathleen is left in charge and facing a host of problems. With the new factory opening soon, the Chivers children searching for a permanent home, and a couple of stray orphans in need of their care, Kathleen feels like she's in over her head. As she tried to navigate these challenges, she finds herself wishing Lily would...

Twin sisters Nettie and Nellie Crook are taken away from their disfunctional parents in 1910 when they are only five years old, and placed in an orphanage--at six they are put on the orphan train by the Children's Aid Society and moved from New York City to Kansas, ending up in a household where they are treated more as servants than children.