Programs related to the books selected for North Idaho Reads (NIR) will be offered by libraries and other venues during September and October.
NIR is a community reading partnership involving three North Idaho counties. The books this year are about the Orphan Trains of the 19th and early 20th centuries and include “Orphan Train” by Christina Baker Kline and “Riders on the Orphan Train” by Alison Moore.
“Orphan Train” is a story of friendship and second chances that highlights a little-known but historically significant movement in America’s past.
Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer is close to “aging out” of the foster care system. A community-service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping Molly out of juvenile detention and worse. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly learns 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. 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.
The book will be read by the Pageturners Library Book Club for its discussion on Oct. 26, at 10:15 a.m. Dr. Virginia Johnson, a member of the NIR Committee, will lead that discussion, which is open to any adult reader. Copies of the book will be available to check out at the Research and Information Desk at the Coeur d’Alene library for the book club. Additional copies will be also available at other libraries, as well as at local book stores.
The book is also scheduled to be read and discussed by the 3Cs Book Club.
“Riders on the Orphan Train” is an historical novel about the journey of two children from very different backgrounds who find themselves on the same train heading West in 1918. It is a story of dislocation, loss, and the search for home that is at the heart of the American experience.
Beginning on the eve of America's entry into World War I and spanning the period of time until the Great Depression, these children encounter and learn from people also looking for a way to belong in a rapidly-changing world. The novel's locations include New York City, Arkansas, the Big Bend region of Texas, central New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.

 

Planned Events
Gary Eller:  Idaho Song Collector Gary Eller presents “Railroad Songs of Early Idaho.” Learn about Idaho through early railroad songs. An Idaho Humanities scholar, Gary will tell tales and sing songs about railroading in the early days of Idaho.  You’ll hear the earliest known American train songs commemorating the first passenger railroad in 1828, and the 1883 song written when the Oregon Short Line was completed. He will also perform an Orphan Train song written in the 1990s about the events taking place form 1853-1929, and two of his own written about the Sagebrush Annie Line and the collapse of the spur railroad after a failed first attempt to build Oxbow Dam.
Libraries and other venues will host Eller starting with Coeur d’Alene on Sept. 12 beginning at 7 p.m.  He will also perform at these libraries, Athol: Sept 13, 6:30 p.m.; Hayden, Sept 14, 6:30 p.m.; Post Falls, Sept 15, 6:30 p.m.; Spirit Lake, Sept 16, 6 p.m.; and at the Wallace Depot: Sept 17, 3 p.m.
Eller will be available after each program to collect early Idaho songs (pre-1923) that he might not have from the public, and that he will have time during the week to talk to people.  There is a song list on the outdated Idaho Songs website at www.bonafidaho.com/idahosongs.htm.

 

Railroad Day: Saturday, Sept 17 is Railroad  Day in Wallace at the Northern Pacific Depot and Railroad Museum. Activities will include Telegraph Demonstrations, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; A Railroad Tea at 2 p.m., with Marlene Bischoff, author of the “All Aboard” book series and new books from the Silver Valley. Refreshments will include oil tea, railroad tie cookies and coal candy; and Gary Eller performs at 3 p.m. (See above.)
The Wallace Library will host a storytime beginning at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 15, in combination with its LEGO Thursday with a theme of train building.

 

Riders on the Orphan Train: Novelist and Humanities Scholar Alison Moore and singer/songwriter Phil Lancaster combine audiovisual elements, historical fiction and musical ballads that bring the Orphan Train movement, a largely unknown chapter in American history, to public awareness. Orphan trains, were a charitable movement that “placed out” 250,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children between 1854 and 1929 to rural families in the American west. 
The multi-media presentation will be hosted by the Coeur d’Alene Library on Friday, Sept. 30 at 6:30 p.m., and at the Post Falls Library, on Saturday, Oct. 1, at 6:30 p.m.
These programs, as well as the Eller concerts are made possible by grants from the Idaho Humanities Council, the state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from the Friends of the Coeur d’Alene Public Library and the Friends of the Community Library Network.

 

Sandpoint Programs: A screening of the PBS American Experience documentary “Orphan Train” will be presented at 9 a.m., Saturday Oct. 1.  At 10:30 a.m. there will be presentation by local Train Historian Aric Spence, "A History of Passenger Train Travel in Sandpoint” at the Columbia Bank auditorium second floor, 414 Church Street in Sandpoint.

 

For details, contact the library or venue hosting a program.