Gr 4-7-Twelve-year-old Rodzina Clara Jadwiga Anastazya Brodski, a strong-willed Polish girl from Chicago, tells the story of her 1881 journey across the U.S. on an orphan train. On the cassette, Ann Baker's subtle reading reflects the emotions and maturity level of each character, and her pronunciation of the Polish words is helpful. Cushman's introduction about her Polish family is particulary poignant. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

After taking on medieval times in Catherine Called Birdy and Matilda Bone, Cushman here follows another feisty heroine as she makes her way West on an orphan train. Narrator Rodzina Cara Jadwiga Anastazya Brodski (who is "big for twelve and every day getting bigger"), starts out with 22 other orphaned children in Chicago, and the novel ends as her train pulls into Oakland Station in California. The author packs a lot into the intervening chapters, often at the expense of character development. A few of Rodzina's fellow riders stand out, such as pretty (but "slow") Lacey, who attaches herself to Rodzina, and Mickey Dooley, who introduces himself as "Orphan, purveyor of blarney, and a genuine bag of laughs." Although many of the train stops are a blur, a memorable scene takes place in a dugout east of Cheyenne, where Rodzina briefly finds a foster home with the Clench family (until she discovers that Mr. Clench plans to wed her); the details of the Clenches' claustrophobic, filthy conditions make for the most palpable setting in the book. Miss Doctor, as Rodzina refers to the female physician who acts as a guardian for the group, sees through Rodzina's tough faade and enlists her to care for the youngest of the orphans. But the development of the relationship between Miss Doctor (who, by her own admission, comes across as "cold and frosty") and Rodzina stumbles and, consequently, the ending of the novel rings hollow. Ages 10-14. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Young, self-reliant, resilient Rodzina (from the Polish for "family") Brodski is an orphan at age 12 in the winter of 1881--her father, mother, and young brothers all dead. She is gathered up in Chicago with other orphans and street children and sent west on one of the "orphan trains" that took children to be placed out on the farms and in the towns of the prairies and mountain states. Among her companions are several younger children Rodzina has known from her days on the street and in the orphanage. As the eldest girl, she is put in charge of these children on the train, and demonstrates her warmth and competence through her grudging attention to them. Along the way, Rodzina goes twice, unwillingly, to unsuitable new homes: once to a couple of women who plan for her to be not only a nursemaid but a farmhand as well, and once to the father of a large hardscrabble family--his wife is dying and he plans to make Rodzina his new wife. Each time Rodzina resourcefully makes her escape and returns to the train. As she continues westward, Rodzina gradually befriends the formidable lady doctor who accompanies the orphans, and begins to long for a new home for herself. The story is undemanding and engaging, rolling along with the journey, subtly letting readers into Rodzina's memories of the home she once had and of her immigrant parents and her Polish heritage. Trina Schart Hyman's intriguing cover art depicts a stocky, fierce young girl--prickly Rodzina with her "stink face" on--and the younger child she shelters. Cushman (Matilda Bone, 2000, etc.) as usual conveys a contemporary feel without anachronism, and the conclusion of Rodzina's journey, though unsurprising, is an agreeable one. (Fiction. 11-13) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

(Intermediate, Middle School) When in March 1881 twelve-year-old Rodzina Clara Jadwiga Anastazya Brodski boards an orphan train heading west from Chicago, her outlook is decidedly pessimistic: ""I would not bet on anything good happening for me."" She's sure that she and the other orphans are all destined to become ""slaves to strangers."" Like many a Cushman heroine before her, Rodzina is prickly, stubborn, and heart-sore (or, as the lady doctor employed by the Orphan Asylum calls her, ""difficult and ornery""). But she's also honest, likable, and smart. As the chapter titles chart Rodzina's progress from Iowa to Omaha to the Wyoming Territory, we learn about her earlier, much-missed life with her Polish-immigrant parents and witness her slow but steady thawing toward her fellow orphans (especially delicate Lacey, who looks on Rodzina as a big sister) and toward the mutually thawing Miss Doctor. Cushman's presentation of the orphan-train saga is solid and thorough, with Rodzina's story representative of the larger one--she is chosen once to be a servant (on a stop in Grand Island, Nebraska), once to be a replacement wife and mother (on the prairie east of Cheyenne; she refuses both times), and finally to be part of a family, if an unusual one. Cushman is too practiced a storyteller to tie everything up too neatly, however, and there's enough unpredictability to nicely unsettle expectations--a funny case of mistaken gender; Rodzina and Lacey's unexpectedly divergent paths. As Rodzina steps off the train for the last time into the California sunshine, readers can bet with confidence on plenty of good things happening for her. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Gr. 5^-9. As in Cushman's Newbery winner, The Midwife's Apprentice (1995), the hero of this lively historical novel is a mean orphan, desperate for home, and her adult mentor is both as tough and as needy as the orphan child. Here the setting is the U.S. in 1881 on the orphan train going west from Chicago to California; but the story of the wild, lonely pauper kids is like something out of Dickens, especially when they remember their desperate lives in the streets and orphanages of the city they left behind. Twelve-year-old Rodzina's first-person account of the uproar on the journey makes the dramatic history immediate. She's terrified of being given away as a slave to strangers. Indeed, as the train stops at various frontier towns along the way, she sees kids brutally exploited for their labor, and she herself escapes a nightmare forced "marriage." But she also sees successful mail-order couples, and some kids do find homes with loving families. A natural for American history or social studies classes, this is especially interesting as a women's history title, with Rodzina portrayed as an unromantic protagonist, big, angry, and tough. The boss of the orphan train is a woman doctor, cold and distant, and as lonely as Rodzina. Yes, it's clear that these two strong women will get together by the end; how that happens makes a great story. Cushman talks about the history in a lengthy final note, and she includes a bibliography of other orphan train books. --Hazel Rochman