Wildflowers: The First Story in the Orphan Train Trilogy

By Robert Noonan

Book Overview

Wildflowers, is a riveting tale that deftly portrays everyday life in a small American mill town and the abuse of child laborers at the end of the nineteenth century.

Eleven-year-old Hillary Cook and her widowed mother, Laura, must both work to survive. Hillary works twelve hours a day, six days a week at the Alton Textile Mill. On Sunday afternoons, she and her two friends pick flowers, dream and play pretend in the nearby countryside. The girls pledge to be friends for eternity and call themselves "wildflowers."

In this difficult world, innocent children are forced to operate dangerous machinery at the mill and even darker abuses are committed against them. Mill owner Frank Dragus has young girls sent to his office for whatever he pleases-and he is interested in Hillary. When tragedy befalls Hillary and her mother, Hillary is forced into a situation that may have disastrous consequences .

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595426832
• ISBN13: 9780595426836
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"