
Visit for more on her fictional adventures, and follow her at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But when Pia leaves quarantine at home in a desperate search for food, she can’t imagine that she’ll return to find her brothers have evaporated into thin air.Įllen Marie Wiseman’s previous novels include best-sellers The Life She Was Given: A Moving and Emotional Saga of Family and Resilient Women, and, What She Left Behind: A Haunting and Heartbreaking Story of 1920s Historical Fiction - which sold over half a million copies - and The Plum Tree: An Emotional and Heartbreaking Novel of WW2 Germany and the Holocaust. With Armistice Day, they dare to hope for a return to normalcy. Price: (as of Oct 05,2021 22:34:25 UTC Details) Instant New York Times Bestseller. 7 mins ago Books Leave a comment 0 Views. Like so many German immigrants, her patriotism was immediately suspect, and her father - feeling the need to prove his loyalty - did so by enlisting to fight the Kaiser. BookReview: The Orphan Collector: A Heroic Novel of Survival During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. Her 13-year-old heroine, Pia, and her mother care for twins, Ollie and Max, even as prejudice and the Purple Death beset them on all sides. She brings us The Orphan Collector, a Target Book Club Pick and an Editor’s Choice in Historical Novel Society magazine. We dive into a riveting novel set 100 years ago that’s eerily familiar today with acclaimed novelist Ellen Marie Wiseman. But in Philadelphia, they’re also disappearing - and they all have one thing in common: They’re immigrants. Only with persistence, and the courage to face her own shame and fear, will Pia put together the pieces and find the strength to end up risking everything to see justice.Septem– The Great War is over, but the Spanish Influenza continues to deliver the butcher’s bill. And learning what happened will be a long and arduous journey – even as Bernice plots to keep the truth hidden at all costs. In the fall of 1918, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia’s overcrowded slums and the anti-immigrant sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the U.S. When Bernice sees Pia leaving her apartment on the way, she is bolstered by a shocking, life-changing decision that leads her on a sinister mission: to transform the orphans and immigrant children of the city into what she feels to be "true Americans."Īs Pia navigates the dark neighborhoods of the city, she cannot know that when she returns, her brothers won't be home. Ellen Marie Wiseman (Goodreads Author) 4.20 Rating details 15,409 ratings 2,056 reviews. Not to mention he and his wife were one of their few English-speaking neighbors who weren’t afraid to be friends with Germans. If doctors hadn't been so busy with hordes of immigrants, they might have been able to save her son. The Orphan Collector 25 strong, a broad-shouldered brick mason who filled the halls with laughter and had been hoping to see the birth of his first child be- fore reporting for the draft. Without food at home, Pia must search for supplies and leave her baby twin brothers alone.īernice Groves has been lost in grief and bitterness, since her baby died days ago. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Orphan Collector: A. The Orphan Collector: A Heroic Novel of Survival During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. Soon, there's death and death everywhere. The Orphan Collector is a best book club book for discussion, a novel of hope about a young German immigrant during the 1918 influenza pandemic of the Spanish Flu. But there came an even more urgent threat. Thirteen-year-old Pia Lange follows her mother through the throngs of Philadelphians gathering for the 1918 Liberty Loan Parade, unaware that the lethal Spanish flu is in their midst. In the fall of 1918, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longed to be far away from the overcrowded streets and slums of Philadelphia, and from the anti-German sentiment that forced her father to join the U.S. Written by Ellen Marie Wiseman Review by Bryan Dumas. Ellen Marie Wiseman, acclaimed author of What She Left Behind and The Life She Was Given, weaves the stories of two very different women into a page-turning novel as stirring as it is, set in the midst of one of the deadliest pandemics in history.
