The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman sure hits home with a novel that takes place during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Interestingly, the author had written it before the recent Covid 19 pandemic.
The story centers around a thirteen-year-old girl, Pia, who lived with her German mother and twin infant brothers. Her father (also German) was off fighting for the United States in World War I. The family lived in Philadelphia in a poor neighborhood. When Pia's mother contracted the flu, Pia was left in charge of everything. Soon her mother died, and Pia had to leave the apartment to find food and supplies for her and the babies. She left the sleeping infants in a small cubbyhole, hoping to return before they woke up. Sadly, Pia was struck ill while out and was unconscious in the hospital for several days. When she returned to the apartment another family had already moved in and knew nothing about Pia's brothers. Pia was placed in an orphanage and was determined to leave there and find her brothers, while also hoping that her father had come home from the war and was looking for his family.
A neighbor of Pia's (who she had never met or seen) had recently lost her baby and happened to see Pia leaving her apartment without the babies. She decided to go to Pia's apartment to check on the twins and found them crying. Without thinking she took the twins and immediately left the neighborhood, moving away from where she would not be found. Eventually, this neighbor decided to take babies or children from orphanages, and sell them to grieving parents. This served two purposes: one to provide money to her, and to help rid the country of "foreign children" and help them to be "American children".
It took Pia a long time to learn the truth about the neighbor and begin the search for justice for everyone involved.
I enjoyed this story, although I sometimes felt that it dragged a bit at the beginning, but I stuck with it and ended up liking it a lot!
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