This is a book you can not out down once started. The characters are believable, and your heart is in knots at many times during Pia’s struggle to find her twin brothers during the Spanish Flu. This novel even though not factual, highlighted the various human beliefs, actions and thoughts when faced with fear, hardships and loss. Some are kind and giving while others bias, racism and bigotry lead them to act in ways they perhaps would not consider in better times. A book when published will make a lovely gift for those who want a good story.

When 13 year old Pia's mother falls ill from the Spanish flu, she is left alone to take care of her twin brothers. Once they run out of food, she leaves the twins behind and searches for supplies. While out, she collapses and is sent to a hospital for Spanish flue victims. Bernice Groves, after losing her infant son, see's Pia leave her apartment. She enters the apartment and upon finding the twins alone, takes then. Once Pia has recovered, she is sent to an orphanage, but she never stops looking for her brothers. Across the city, Bernice finds ways to take immigrant children, putting them on trains, taking them away from their families and to the orphanage, all in a misguided attempt to "Americanize" them.

This book was a bit slow to start. The beginning chapters felt very much like rambling. I almost put the book down, but pressed through. The story vastly improved once the author finished introducing the city, time period, and characters. Overall, 3 out of 5 stars.

This was a a very emotional book to read. Pia and her twin brothers story is heart wrenching. World War I, The Spanish Influenza, and Pia's never ending struggle to reunite with her brothers.
Lovers of historical fiction will really enjoy this book. It would also be a fantastic read for a book club.
Thank You NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

This is such an emotionally intense story. I was gripped by young Pia’s journey to reunite with her siblings during a devastating historical era, when the Spanish flu snatched away so many innocent lives. With heart-rending tension, Ellen Marie Wiseman unfolds a tale of desperate hope, evil wrought by prejudice, and the unwavering love of family. Though it takes place a century ago, it also offers a timely reminder of how immigrants are tightly woven into America’s fabric.

The Orphan Collector is the raw, emotion-filled roller coaster of a historical fiction story that you didn't know you needed to read. Lovers of historical fiction as a genre will enjoy this well-researched novel, but those of us who don't flock to stories about the early 1900s will enjoy it tremendously. And by "enjoy", I mean get irritated, defensive, and upset for the real-life heroes and villains who faced the Spanish Influenza. Pia Lange, the thirteen-year-old protagonist loses her mother to the flu and her father's fighting for the United States in the war, which means that when the outbreak hits her pocket of Philadelphia, she's solely responsible for the lives of her twin baby brothers, Ollie and Max. Faced with a lose-lose situation, she safely abandons her brothers while she's searching for sustenance for all of them. While Pia is out, the babies get stolen by a neighbor who believes the young girl has abandoned them and whose racist heart leads to years of questionable and illegal decisions. On her hunt for food, Pia collapses and wakes up six days later from the flu. She has survived, but at what cost? She's distraught about her brothers and finds herself in an orphanage. The alternating chapters that chronicle the racist neighbor and her pursuits counteract Pia's good nature, willingness to help, and desire to do what's right.

Thankful to get to read an advence copy.
As a librarian, I want to talk to others about this book.

Sept 28, 1918 -Liberty Loan Parade on the streets of Philadelphia
Parade should have been canceled, disease starting and no precautions taken.
1918- 1919 influenza epidemic
affected 0ne-third world's population
Spanish Flu- worst epidemic claimed more lives than any other pandemic.
Now known as the Year of the Forgotten Death.
This book begins with the parade, travels the streets of the terrible suffering to the dying.
Residents desperate for relief, resorting to folk remedies, that we now consider barbaric, unsafe, and strange.
By December 1918, over 47,000 Philadelphians contracted Flu and over 12,000 died.
Parents not knowing which way to turn making decisions no parent wants to make.
A woman who lost her own child, becomes a villian by making money by searching of the lost children and orphans.

Ellen Marie Wiseman presents her readers with the most hard hitting and well researched novel that it has been my pleasure to read. It provides a microcosmic view of a world wide pandemic that devastated the world right on the heels of the First World War. The Spanish Flu, as it was termed, actually surpassed the deaths of the combatants in it's mortality rate. Beginning in 1918 as the war was winding down towards it's end the first "wave" of the disease began and continued in two additional waves before it had run it's course.
Ms Wiseman uses two women living in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area during the period of the outbreak and spread of the flu as the principal characters of the novel. The first is a young girl of 13 who is faced with the most horrible situation that any human can encounter. Pia Lange is the daughter of a family that emigrated from Germany before the war began. In order to convince people that he was not a traitor Pia's father enlisted in the U.S. army and was sent to France and life in the trenches. Pia's mother was forced to handle the family's problems, tending to Pia and two twin baby brothers. There was very little social network support in those days and her mother was destroyed by both her work in the apartment they lived in as well as having to bring in money. When the lady died from being run down and contracting the flu Pia had to take her place. Ms Wiseman's descriptions of Pia's struggles and problems are heart breaking when she is used as an example of how orphans were treated in the past.
Bernice Groves is the other woman involved in the story. She has just had her baby pass away due to the disease and is understandably devastated by it. Bernice sees Pia leaving her building one day and makes a decision that will affect both women and the near future course of their lives. The decision and it's consequences are the gist of the story and the means of writing about the effect the flu has on everyone living at the time of the event. Ms Wiseman is extremely effective in fleshing out the characters that take part in the novel and the personal agonies that they suffer in trying to survive a disease that seems to have no end in sight.

Ellen Marie Wiseman's The Orphan Collector was incredible to read. The highest of highs, the lowest of lows. Parts of this novel were horrific to read... just considering how orphans were treated historically. I fear that their situation is not always much better today.

Pia, the young 13 year old girl in the center of this novel, experiences unbelievable heartache and pain as a result of the Spanish Flu and her subsequent life in the orphanage. Her story's intersection with Nurse Wallis is one of those trainwreck scenes you just can't look away from... and it keeps happening time and time again... but fortunately the redemption at the end of this book through Pia's work with the Hudson family and Finn left me closing the book with a smile on my face.

I've read other books by Ellen Marie Wiseman and think this was her best one yet!

After the devastation of Word War I, a weary world is hit hard by the Spanish influenza, a pandemic that will make the death toll from the War to end all Wars look puny in comparison. In Philadelphia, German immigrant Pia Lange is trying to start a new life, but it’s not easy; her father joined the U.S. Army hoping to prove his loyalty to his new country, but Pia is till regarded with suspicion and hostility. Now, she’s fighting for her life and the life of her twin baby brothers, scavenging to find food, even if it takes her far from home. Meanwhile Bernice Groves is inconsolable after the loss of her son, she blames the doctors who couldn’t save him, but her real hatred is reserved for the immigrants she blames for taking medical care away from her son, a true American. When Beatrice sees Pia leave her apartment in search of food, she makes a terrible decision and makes it her mission to turn immigrant children into “real” Americans. This is such a tragic page from our nation’s past and it is even more relevant today than ever, as our government decides who is worthy of saving and who is not. Wiseman’s story is beautiful, bold and frightening and more than anything, a cautionary tale