Summary Of ' Molly Ayer '

Redemption, a word with many meanings but few examples. People who usually think of redemption will normally think about Jesus, but few ever think of Molly Ayer and Niamh Power. Molly Ayer is a young troubled orphan teenager with a gothic persona, who desperately tried to find a family who she can call her own. Vivian is a 91-year-old women, who is more commonly known as Vivian. has agreed to help Molly complete her 50 hours of community service while Molly is on probation after she was caught steal a book. Throughout the novel Molly and Vivian will enlightened each other with their own past and their various similarities that will help them develop a closer bond with each other. In the book, “The Orphan Train” Molly Ayer and Vivian

Plot:          Macey Clare is a 15 year old girl who’s parents are never home so she stays with her grandparents on the weekdays, and on the weekends that her parents come home from work all week, she stays with them.

Experiencing further unstable environments, these children are forced to move from one foster home to another. They rarely develop meaningful relationships and constantly endure lack of care and protection by adults. Sabreen, another gifted student, was able to excel in school despite her unstable environments. She, too, became a ward of the county battling to find a stable home, constantly being placed in unstable environments, environments that do not encourage any achievement. When her situation becomes untenable, she goes AWOL, like Olivia, refusing to return to county supervision. Corwin masterfully frames the problem that wards, like Olivia and Sabreen, face when they feel that going back into the system is not an option. The additional struggles can be seen through Olivia and Sabreen accepting jobs with long hours in order to make enough to pay their bills. The responsibility on taking care of themselves financially detracts from their studies, which quickly can become a vicious, never-ending cycle.

In Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline weaves a strong friendship between two characters, Vivian and Molly, despite a lengthy list of differences. The most blatant contrast, and the root cause of many other differences, is age and the separate eras both Vivian and Molly grow up in. In the span of her life, Vivian Nielsen, a ninety-one year old widow, experiences the Great Depression, World War II, and a technology boom impossible to keep up with. On the other hand, Molly Ayer is a sixteen year old tech-savvy foster child who uses “her Goth persona like armor” against an unsympathetic society (Kline 4). Another dissimilarity is ethnicity. Vivian is a first generation Irish immigrant and in being a Penobscot Native American Indian, Molly is unable to be more different than Vivian. While these differences seem apparent, the

People of many different nationalities settled in Pennsylvania to work in the coal mines. Conflicts developed not only among people of different cultural backgrounds but also between laborers and owners of the mines. The struggle between labor and management is illustrated in the story of the Molly Maguires, an Irish group which settled in eastern Pennsylvania.

Although Twyla and Roberta both struggled with mother issues, they develop different reactions yet similar solutions to their troubles. During her stay at the youth shelter,

Ellen finds a woman at church that takes in orphan girls, but will there be any room for her? Will it just end up being another misunderstanding, like with her aunt, who was under the assumption that she would just be visiting for a few days. It is Ellen’s determination which eventually lands her a place in a loving home, with loving companionship.

Who were the Molly Maguires? Did they really exist? These are questions asked by many people today. Some historians wonder if the Molly Maguires really did bring their secret society from England to the United States, or if the incidents blamed on them were just random accidents on which officials needed to place a blame. We may never actually know...

Phoenix, Arizona was their next destination. Jeanette’s original thought of living with their grandma again were cast aside as Mary reveals that she passed away during their stay at Battle mountain. Upon arrival the family stays in a fairly large house that was left in Grandma Smith’s will for Mary. Things were positive at first as the usually are, but slowly took a wrong turn as they usually do. Jeanette attends a new school where she is bullied for her intelligence, however this conflict soon ends when her brother Brian steps in and stands up for her. Rex got another job and supplied for the family as usual. Just as things were getting nice, Christmas day comes. This time the kids actually had real gifts, they each got a bike as well as small gifts they bought each other. Everything is looking up until their father got intoxicated and accidently burned their presents after opening up his, and using the lighter inside of it. Their father loses yet another job, and things tumble downwards. From people breaking into their house, touching the children, and just sleeping in the house. The big moment comes when

Sonny has a “rough” time where he finds himself in “jail” for “narcotics trafficking” (208). Skloot reveals how not having a guardian and guidance leads someone to turn to occupations they would have never committed to before. Also, she emphasizes how authority is needed in a child so they may stay in the right path of life. Also, Deborah becomes so upset she cries out for help: “‘...Just being sad and crying to myself..Why, Lord, did you take my mother when I needed her so much?’” (218). Deborah changed from a happy child to someone in desperate need of a parent when she lost her mother. Skloot reveals how the requisite fostering of a parent lifts the children up in awful

Following the death of her son Aibileen gets a job working as a maid for Elizabeth Leefolt who has just had a baby girl Mae Mobley and is in need of help taking care of her. Aibileen tries her best to teach Mae Mobley

In 1987, by the age of 16, Claireece Precious Jones had already endured inconceivable adversities in her young life. “Precious,” as she was called, lived with her dysfunctional, abusive, unemployed mother, Mary, in the New York City ghetto of Harlem. Mary and Precious resided in a Section 8 tenement where they survived on welfare. After being repetitively sexually abused by her own biological father, Carl, Precious became pregnant with her second child at 16 years old. Precious’ grandmother cared for her first child, Mongo, although Mary forced the family to pretend that the child lived with her and Precious so that she could receive additional funds from the government. After Precious’ pregnancy was discovered, she was forced out of the public school where she had been able to hide her illiteracy, and began attending an alternative school called “Each One Teach One.” It was at the alternative school that Precious encountered her first supportive community, as she built friendships with the other females in her GED class, as well as with her teacher, Blu Rain.

Tracy Freeland is a 13 year-old Caucasian girl in the 7th grade. She lives with her mother and brother in a small house in Los Angeles. Tracy attends Portola Middle School with her brother, Mason, who is slightly older than her. Tracy 's mother, Melanie, a recovering alcoholic, is divorced and works as a hair stylist in order to support her family and herself. Tracy 's family relies on her father sending money every month, however, the father has neglected to send money for the last few months causing Tracy 's mother to remain busy with work. Tracy 's mother is so preoccupied with financial aspects and an unstable relationship with her boyfriend, who is in and out of drug rehabilitation centers, that Tracy 's close relationship with her mother has begun to dwindle, and they begin to drift apart; Her mother, although not intentionally neglectful, is too preoccupied with other situations that she is unable to sense the distress that Tracy is experiencing. Tracy 's father is also busy with work and neither Tracy or Mason see much of him.

Her first foster home is with a mother named Star. Star is a busty, and leggy, ex-coke addict turned Christian. Star has a boyfriend named Ray, and Astrid falls in love with him. Astrid, 13, has an affair with the 40-something Ray. Star gets jealous of their friendship and gets suspicious. One day, Star comes in, in a drunken rage and

These constant beatings in Maggie Johnson’s home, furniture thrown from parent to parent, and every aspect of her family life as being negative, her family situation is not an extremly healthy one. But, despite her hardships, Maggie grows up to become a beautiful young lady whose romantic hopes for a more desirable life remain untarnished.