Orphan Eleven
Orphans seek home in the circus in riveting page-turner.
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this book.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Orphan Eleven, by Newbery Honor recipient Gennifer Choldenko (Al Capone Does My Shirts), is a historical novel set in 1939, about orphans who run off and find home and family in the circus. It's also about a horrific "speech" experiment done on children that mirrors a real-life Depression-era one. Traumatized by the experiment, one of the the runaways, main character Lucy, refuses to speak at all. The villainous keepers from the orphanage will stop at nothing to get her back. She finds refuge in a traveling circus wintering nearby, where she's so desperate to stay that she becomes the terrified "target girl" for a knife-thrower. Through all this, her long-lost older sister, Dilly, is trying desperately to find her, and being stonewalled by the matron of the orphanage. In short, there's a lot of harrowing, perilous stuff facing the main characters and the reader. But the kids find kindness and a home -- as well as responsibility and self-respect -- at the circus, with life-changing results. In the process, some of the orphans also learn better ways, like the 11-year-old who begins to realize that honest work might be better than cheating at cards.
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What's the Story?
It's 1939, and 11-year-old Lucy Sauvé, aka ORPHAN ELEVEN, has been at the Home for Friendless Children since she was 6, her mother was dying, and her good-for-nothing stepfather left her there. A happy kid who sang and danced when she arrived, she now won't say anything -- the result of mysterious "lessons" for which she's been singled out. She longs to find her older sister, Dilly, but in vain. Then one day, she sees her chance and runs. So do three other kids. They make it to Saachi’s Circus Spectacular, nearby in its winter quarters, where they hope to prove themselves and be taken in as apprentices. Lucy sees the circus' upcoming stop in Chicago as her best chance to find Dilly, who was last seen there. Dilly, meanwhile, is just as anxious to find Lucy, and, as a series of letters reveals, is being lied to by the matron of the orphanage to prevent this. And the matron has goons searching all over the district to get Lucy back.
Is It Any Good?
This riveting, uplifting page-turner about a girl who flees a cruel orphanage and finds home and family in a traveling circus has strong messages of courage, friendship, and determination. The odds seem heavily stacked against Orphan Eleven, who was traumatized into silence by "lessons" at the Home for Friendless Children. But as she soon discovers, the world isn't all villains -- there are people out there who will go to a lot of trouble to help one another, and you.
"'Seriously, Lucy, Saachi's is its own kind of special,' Buck said. 'A home for those of us don't fit anywhere else.'
"Lucy smiled.
"'What do you think, boys, is she a keeper?'"
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the circus as a place people (especially kids) run off to when things just aren't working out for them in regular life. How does that theme play out in Orphan Eleven -- and how is it treated in other circus tales you know?
What's fun about reading or watching stories set in other time periods? What are some of your favorites?
In 1933, Lucy and Dilly's mother died of tuberculosis. Today, she could be treated and probably cured. What other diseases used to be a much more serious, widespread problem than they are today? How did people get them under control?
Book Details
- Author: Gennifer Choldenko
- Genre: Historical Fiction
- Topics: Adventures, Brothers and Sisters, Friendship, Great Girl Role Models, History
- Book type: Fiction
- Publisher: Wendy Lamb
- Publication date: May 26, 2020
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 8 - 12
- Number of pages: 320
- Available on: Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
- Last updated: September 25, 2020
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