Christina Baker Kline, the author of Orphan Train, came to Stockton to present the history and her research behind the book. After spending so much time analyzing the book, it was a treat seeing the author tell her audience what she really meant or what she really wanted to portray in a character when she wrote a certain part. Kline did an amazing job because she really put the audience in her characters’ shoes. With a book with so much information and history, it is important to know what was actually happening during that time period. She went through the entire process of how she came up with the idea and what she did and found in her research, which then transitioned smoothly into the Q&A Session. At the end, Kline signing my book was an awesome extra perk!

Personally, I really liked this event because we got to see who created the people and storyline that our seminar classes held discussions over. It was organized and to the point. But I wish that the question and answer session could have been longer because Kline wasn’t able to answer them all. Also one thing I noticed was that there were people who had classes, so they were getting up and leaving. Even though I knew they had no choice, it still seemed a bit rude to the guest speaker. But overall, after this great convocation, I would love to go to another. It would be awesome to get an insight on more books that we have to read.