Member Reviews
The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham is a riveting fictional tale that shines light on the British Home Children who arrived in Canada. Grab a box of tissues, a glass of wine and your readers' group as Graham delivers an unforgettable tale.
A unforgettable tale with characters and stories that will stay with you long after you close the book. The Forgotten Home Child is a must read for fans of historical fiction and the perfect book club read.
Full review will post @ Caffeinated Reviewer on March 2, 2020. Link provided.
This book will long live in my conscience. What a tour de force Genevieve Graham has researched and written. I also had never heard of the Home Children and to know that this novel is a true story of the experiences of the British Home Children is truly heartbreaking.
Winny is living on the streets in Liverpool with other unfortunate children also living on the streets in the 1930’s when they are caught stealing, split up, and Winny and her friend Mary are delivered to Dr. Bernardo’s Barkingside Home for Girls where they live comfortably. Then it is decided that they are to have the privilege of being sent to Canada to live with loving families. They reconnect with the boys, Mary’s brother, Jack and two brothers while waiting to board the ship taking them across the ocean to Canada. Their story is told in the past and a present where Winny, now 97, comes to terms with her perceived shameful past, and finally shares her secrets with her family. The story focuses mainly on Winny, Mary, and Jack and paints a very disturbing picture of the horrific treatment these children were subjected to.
It is mind numbing to think that 100,000 to 130,000 children between the ages of 3 and 18 were subjected to this horrific abuse. This is a must read for everyone. There are excellent thought provoking questions at the end that have “Book Club” written all over them. I am going to strongly urge my own book club to read this one so we can talk about it. I could not put this book down once I started it.
Many many thanks to Genevieve Graham, Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley for affording me the opportunity to read this thought provoking book about a slice of Canadian history that everyone should know about. It is to be published on March 3, 2020. You need to preorder this phenomenal read! I plan to read more novels by Genevieve.
The Forgotten Home Child tells a story of Canadian history that very few know about; from approximately the 1890s to 1940s over 100000 children where sent to Canada from Britain to be “adopted” while this fairy tale happened for a few, most became indentured servants and so many were treated poorly.
This book takes us through the journey of a group of children who became a family living on the streets of London and then being sent to Canada. While their paths became individual they are intertwined.
The main character- Winny, her story is told in present day and in the past- a life she was hoping to keep secret and take to her grave. A story of love and despair, loss and a courage.
I could not put this book down, I had such an emotional attachment to the characters and I just had to know what was going to happen and found myself praying they would be ok! Absolutely fantastic historical fiction; a must read!
Thanks to #netgalley and #simonandschuster for an advanced digital copy, in return for a honest review.
I am s thankful to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster Canada and Genevieve Graham for the opportunity to read The Forgotten Home Child.
The books begins with Winny answering the questions from her great grandson about an old wooden trunk Winny was carrying when she moved into their home. There begins a tale about a piece of history I knew nothing about. Winny and several friends, Jack and his sister Mary, Edward, Cecil and Quinn had been placed in a children's home in England because they did not have a home that was safe for them to stay in and the streets were not safe either. At 16, Winny and her friends were all sent to Canada to be put to work with farm families or be adopted. Because the children were so far away, the home could not keep as close a watch on them as they should have and they lived lives much worse than they had been exposed to on the streets of London.
The book tells the story in present time and also in the past as Winny is recounting everything to her family. This is a must read! I will be looking for more about the British Home Children and their stories. This book is sad, uplifting, horrific and enlightening all at the same time. Go out a buy it and I think you will agree.
This book follows the lives of children that were placed into the Barnardo Homes. Winny, Mary, Cecil, Jack, Charlotte, and Edward experienced devastating circumstances from being moved from England to Canada to the mostly horrible people that bought the children. The book exposes how children are regarded in this time period especially on farms, where children were birthed for labor and in the case of the Barnardo Home Children bought for labor. Winny is the main character, the narrator, of the story, who exposes the horrible circumstances she experienced as a child and how multiple generations were impacted by Barnardo's charity.
As to my thoughts on the book, I would have appreciated a more developed background of the children during their time in England pre and during their time at Barnardo's. A more developed background would have given the reader more knowledge about Barnardo's and the experiences of children and destitute families in England during the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression. Further, more information can be developed with the many illnesses that children experienced while in these close quartered homes. The Note to Reader section of the book provided a lot of information about Barnardo's Homes and his charity that could have been better weaved into the book. The story after the children were settled into their new homes was well done with a lot of historical facts about their tragic lives. I appreciated that the author did explore that not all children were bought by horrible people, as in the case of Charlotte. And, I appreciated the multigenerational approach to the book include the organizations that continue to work into this modern day to expose and link families that were victims of Barnardo's charity.
Thanks to Net Galley for the digital arc. I really liked this book. I Have not read any other Genevieve Graham books but this one caught my eye. I will give this a 5 star.
A very moving, emotional story. Reminds me of America’s abandoned children who were sent by railway to Midwest farms during mid 1800s-1929, but am not aware if they were as abused and mistreated as many of the Canadian children who were forced to work under adverse conditions.
Only warning is that there some very graphic descriptions of the physical abuse suffered by both boys and girls.
An interesting story with excellent background notes provided by Genevieve Graham. Would definitely read a future book.
Thanks to #netgalley and #simonandschuster for an advanced digital copy.
I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.
1936 London: Fifteen-year-old Winny has never known a real home. After running away from an abusive stepfather, she falls in with Mary and Jack. Their ragtag group of friends are caught stealing food. Winny learns she will soon join other boys and girls in a faraway place called Canada, where families and better lives await them. Present day, Winny recalls her life and shares all with her grandchildren.
Based on the true story of the British Home Children who were shipped to Canada with the promise of a better life. Although this story seems to highlight just the tragic and hurt that happened to the kids, the overall story of the home and why it was started was interesting.
3☆
Jack, his sister Mary, Edward his brother Cecil and Winny are a group of friends doing anything they can to survive on the streets.
When the are caught by the police the girls are taken to the Barkingside Home for Girls. This is an orphanage for forgotten children. The boys are sent to a boys orphanage.
Later they learn they are being sent from England to Canada. They are assured they will be given an opportunity at a better life. They are told there are people why may adopt them. They may also be allowed to work for families and earn money after they reach a certain age.
They are excited when their little group is reunited on the ship headed for Canada.
When they arrive the three boys and one other boy are sent to work at a farm. The girls are divided and each sent to seperate farms.
When Winny is picked up her Mistress is harsh. She orders Winny to gather the eggs and milk the cows. Winny has never done anything like that. In fact this is her first time seeing a cow, how is she supposed to know how to milk it?
Living conditions were harsh. She was given the scraps from the table as her meals. She was made to sleep in the barn. The sheep kept her warm in the harsh winters.All this time she wondered about, Jack, Mary, Cecil and Edward. She hoped that they were in kinder environments. That they were warm and getting plenty to eat.
Each of the children go through some horrid experiences.
The people in charge of checking on the children were overwhelmed with all of them. They were unaware that these children were abused, starved, raped and sometimes killed.
Because of how these children were treated and how others looked at them, they were ashamed of who they were.
Many of them never divulged this secret and future families never knew the history of their ancestors.
This is a true story of Winny and her group of friends. The hardships they endured. The love, loyalty and commitment that they had for each other. It is a story of courage and strength! Brilliant!
Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of The Forgotten Home Child.
This is a novel about a group of children who were sent to Canada as part of the British Home child program. Many were orphans, many were not. These children were essentially cheap/slave labour for farms and homesteads across Canada. Many were abused physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually. The Forgotten Home Child takes the reader on a journey into this world, which honestly I did not know about. Mary, Jack, Winny, Cecil and Edward find each other as young children and learn to survive on London’s mean streets. Through a turn of events, they are brought into the world of the Barnardo Homes and are eventually sent to Canada. It is a heartbreaking story of the injustices these children went through, but also of their resilience.
Their story is an important one. I, for one, did not know about this chapter in Canadian history and was shocked to read about it. Obviously, many children who came as part of this initiative were cared for and loved, and this is also portrayed in the book. However, the dark side of this program is what the author tackles and illuminates in her novel. The writing is uncomplicated, straightforward, and easily tackled. The downfall of this story arc is that the ending feels very contrived, which for me detracted from its importance. I felt as if the writing should have had a greater impact on me and should have not been so predictable. It was a bit disappointing in that aspect. On the other hand, the illumination of Barnardo Homes is important and for that alone I would recommend this book. Just don’t expect anything other than uncomplicated writing and story structure.
This was it. This was the one. The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham is what landed her on my auto-buy list of authors. (Just to be clear there’s only one other author so far that I will buy whatever they decide to put out. Most of my other pre-orders are series continuations or buzz from other bloggers.) Graham had me spellbound. I stayed up pretty late for me on a workweek night to get as far as I could. The next day I stayed up until 2 am to finish it. I had to know what happened.
While the way Graham decided to tell us Winny’s story isn’t necessarily new, it is captivating. Of course Graham had her unique way of doing so. We get snippets of the present with the majority of the book being written in Winny’s past. It is some past. Graham won points because she taught me something new about fairly recent history. I was completely floored. I really want to go into detail about it but it might be a pretty big spoiler and I hate spoilers.
The Forgotten Home Child made me feel all of the emotions. All. Of. Them. My face has never contorted in rage while reading a book. My face completely gives me away every time. I’ve never been so angry as I was when I read parts of this book. Face contortions happened. I teared up multiple times throughout the book. It also filled me with pride for her rag tag family. What Winny and her friends experienced was horrific and that’s just the beginning of it. I’m still stunned by the way they refused to give up or be what they were told they were. Of course, understandably, not everyone could overcome their circumstances.
I adored the characters in this book. I really connected with Winny and therefore by default with Mary, Jack, Edward, and Cecil. It made reading much more intense. I rallied with them. I was with them when they were broken. Reading The Forgotten Home Child was such a great experience and it made me aware of a part of history that I wasn’t aware of. It’s a part of history that has effects still today.
I really could keep going on and on about The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham. It was an amazing read and I enjoyed it so much that I pre-ordered a copy. I don’t think that you need to be a fan of historical fiction to fall in love this book. I truly believe that it will resonate with all readers. It’s a beautiful story that needed to be written. Now it needs to be read.
The Forgotten Home Child is a historical fiction novel, set in Canada and detailing a mostly unknown chapter in Canadian history.
The novel is told in two character perspectives (Winny and Jack), with Winny's part also spanning past and present day, about orphaned or street children from England brought to Canada in the early parts of 1900s as a resettlement type program. Rather than a better life, for most children in the program, it turned into indentured servitude, abuse, and more. Winny slowly recounts her hidden past to her great grandson as he asks for family history.
The novel is definitely a page turner. It was my first read of 2020 and resulted in my staying up till 2am to finish it. I grew up in Canada and had never heard of the Home Children program, but started delving into more details after the novel.
5 Stars
What can I say, if you love historical fiction and The Orphan Train, run don't walk to buy a copy of The Forgotten Home Child. What a travesty that many of these children experienced. England's solution to rid itself of unwanted children, some truly orphaned and many not, was to ship them off to Canada. This story follows the lives of a group of rag tag children who begin by living and surviving in the streets of London then are places in an orphanage and then sold to families in Canada as cheap labor. The group of 3 boys and 3 girls were each other's family. One was lucky to find a loving family while the others were exploited. This tail is based on true events that happen.. I learned much about a horrible mark history and much forgotten by our neighbors to the north.
This book would be an excellent book club book with thoughtful questions found at the end to spur discussion. I cannot wait to see how it does when it is released.
Thank you, Simon and Schuster and NetGalley, for an ARC book in exchange for an honest review.
Wonderful, wonderful story! It is based on a true story which makes it even more enjoyable. Winny is 97 years old now and finally reveals her past to her granddaughter and great grandson . In the 1930’s over 100,000 British children, known as British Home Children, were sent overseas, many to Canada. These were children mostly living on the streets, destitute, homeless with no money. It was thought that they had a chance for a better life in Canada. Many children did end up with a good life with families who adopted them and gave them a good life . But many, many others were sent to families who used them as slaves, abusing them. Winny, a fifteen year old, linked up with Jack, Mary, Edward, other children, and they became her family. They were all sent to Canada and lost touch with each other.the story is heartbreaking, but also illustrates the strength of these children and the love they had for each other. This story will stay in your heart long after you finish reading.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Have you ever heard of the British Home Children? I hadn’t until reading this book. Between the late 1860s and early 1930s more than 100,000 British street children and orphans were sent away to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as cheap laborers.
This is the fictionalized account of Winny and her friends, sent to Canada to become indentured servants in the 1930s. While some of the British Home Children became adopted members of their new families, many experienced neglect, hard labor and horrific abuse.
Genevieve Graham writes a story of unwavering friendship, love and belonging— no matter the circumstances that seek to tear a chosen family apart.
Winny leaves home at 11 due to an abusive situation to live on the London streets. She hooks up with siblings, Jack and Mary Miller, and two other brothers, Edward and Cecil. The kids are picked up for stealing and the boys are separated from the girls and sent to orphanages and then to a home. When the girls are 15 they are shipped to Canada to be part of the Home Children Program. On the ship they are reunited with the boys but when they get to Canada they are separated again and they vow to find each other.
The story is told from Winny's point of view in the present (2018) and in the past when she was an indentured servant and then starting her career as a nurse. The other point of view is Jack's.
I liked the book. It was easy to read and the character of Jack, Mary and Winny were well developed. The things that these children went through was horrible. They weren't wanted in England, hoped for a better life in Canada but they weren't wanted there either. At times their treatment made me so angry. The Home Children Program is a real thing and my only issue with the book is that the writer took memories from real Home Children and rolled all those incidents into the story and sometimes it was just overwhelming. I was happy for what happened in the end but I wish it hadn't ended so abruptly.
I would recommend this book especially if you enjoyed The Orphan Train.
Did you know children from London orphanages were sent to Canada? For years! This novel is a fictionalized story about real life. One that now has me researching more.
3.5 stars. This novel was thoroughly researched and a really interesting perspective on a chapter of Canadian history that I knew nothing about.The biggest drawback for me was that I didn't particularly enjoy the author's writing style.
The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham is the heartbreaking story of the British Home Children, and is inspired by the historically accurate plight of destitute children who were sent to Canada from England in the 1930s, where they became virtual slaves to their Canadian 'masters'. This is a part of Canadian history of which I was shamefully unaware, and thank you to Ms Graham for shining a light on events that should never be forgotten.
Alternating between 1936 and 2018, we learn the story of Winny Ellis who, at ninety seven years old, is finally relating the details of her youth to her granddaughter and great grandson, who provide a captivated audience.
Fleeing an intolerable home life in England, Winny finds herself living on the streets, destitute, when she meets Mary and her brother, Jack, who take the vulnerable and naive Winny under their wings. When the children are forced to depart by ship to Canada, they vow that if they are separated, they will find their way back to each other, whatever the cost. Yet, none of them can possibly know of the hardships that the others will endure as they find themselves truly alone in the struggle for survival.
This is a brilliant piece of historical fiction that illuminates true circumstances that are almost too horrible to grasp. Highly recommended.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for this ARC.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read a digital ARC of this book
My first book by Genevieve Graham and can I say it was absolutely amazing! What a story.
I have heard of the British Home Children but never in my wildest thoughts did I think how horrible they were treated.
The British Home children were sent to Canada for a better life...yeah right...what some of the supposed ophans went through brought tears to my eyes. Yes it is a historical fiction story but based on true stories...
I fell in love with the characters and at moments I had to stop reading because of becoming emotional tears were flowing hard....
The synopsis tells you what the book is about so I'm not going into that...what I will say is that if you love historical fiction I guarantee that you will love this book.
Based on true stories from the Home children's children you will feel a series of emotions that will rock your world.
Keep a box of tissues handy because if you have heart it will break and you will cry...
Highly recommend!