Freshman Convocation – Speaker: Christina Baker Kline, Author of Orphan Train
Standing at the front of the Richard Stockton Performing Arts center at 4:30pm Thursday, New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline welcomed her audience after her introduction. The room was at maximum capacity, but silenced by the shared interest in the topic of discussion: Orphan Train. Several students had papers and pens out, but little writing was done once Baker Kline began speaking, her diction capturing her audience’s attention just as her novel did this semester. After thanking Stockton for the warm welcome, Baker Kline said that she would be discussing the process she went through to write the book and her sources of inspiration for her plot and characters.
Upon turning her presentation to the next page, a picture of her eldest son at the age of nine appeared, sitting at a piano with a pirate costume on. From here, Baker Kline elaborated on how her son and mother-in-law stumbled upon an article about orphan train riders, and in there found the mother-in-law’s father along with his siblings. Not only had she and the rest of her family not known of his experience on the train, but the very existence of orphan trains was a shock to Baker Kline and even her historian husband. This moment sparked her interest in writing a story of the orphan trains.
When talking about how she felt as she approached writing this story, Baker Kline revealed that she initially felt trepidation at taking on the project. She said that it didn’t feel right for her to write the story, as someone who wasn’t a train rider, wasn’t related to one, and had very limited knowledge of them. However, her desire to publicize the history of the orphan trains, especially as the generation affected by these events passes on, overwhelmed her and so she began work on her novel. Initially not intending for the novel to be labeled as historical fiction, Baker Kline wanted her book to be true to the research she had conducted, and then to show the aged train rider and how some still live with these scars decades later. Her interviews with train riders revealed information that would help her mould her story; she told her audience that she wanted the riders to feel as though they were involved in the making of the story. Baker Kline reveals the details she included–such as Vivian being a redheaded, Irish, girl of 9 whose parents died in a fire–were common to many orphans on the train and were characteristics that made a child less likely to be adopted.
Important to Baker Kline however, was avoiding sentimentalizing the story, and holding true to the tales she heard of from the trains. She heard from many stories that in the end, the riders were appreciative of their journeys due to where it had brought them, to happiness with their children and grandchildren. Baker Kline was very interested in showing the ability for Vivian, even at the age of ninety-one, to resolve her past and overcome her regrets by moving forward to correct her mistakes. As Baker Kline finished her talk, the room erupted into applause. Students excitedly asked questions, their hands waving in the air, and Christina took her time to thoroughly answer each question. Sadly, the time passed quickly, and everyone moved to the lobby for the book signing, wrapping up a wonderful night.