In the Face of Danger (The Orphan Train Adventures Series #3) by Joan Lowery Nixon

From the Publisher

The Orphan Train Quartet follows the story of the six Kelly children, whose widowed mother has sent them west from New York City in 1856 because she realizes she can't give them the life they deserve.

Shy Megan Kelly truly believes she is to blame for her family's misfortune. She'll never forget the day a gypsy grabbed her palm and read it, announcing that Megan was a "bad-luck penny" who would always bring trouble to those around her.

Megan is happy when a loving young couple living in the rugged Kansas territory adopt her. But during the first trying months, a blizzard, a pack of prairie wolves, and armed fugitive are just some of the disasters the family must face. Megan is certain the gypsy's curse is real. With the help of her new family, can Megan find a way to overcome her fear and superstition?

Children's Literature

In this third book in her series "The Orphan Train Adventures," Nixon again uses engrossing fiction to relate the factual experiences of children from the New York slums who were adopted by settlers and taken West from 1854 to 1929. This book realistically portrays the experiences of a group of children who began this journey frightened and alone, but who over time, came to love and be cherished by their new families. Megan, age twelve, is separated from her siblings when her widowed mother decides she can no longer care for her children . Several years earlier, Megan had answered the door to her home only to face a beggar woman who puts a bad luck spell on her. From that day forward, she feels responsible for her father's death and all the "bad luck" that befalls the people she loves. This story is about Megan--her sorrows and the love of her adoptive family that led to a renewed belief in herself. The female characters are refreshingly strong and resourceful. This is a good novel for boys and girls who want an exciting story based on historical fact and that provides lessons still applicable today. 2000 (orig. 1988), Gareth Stevens, Ages 10 up, $21.27. Reviewer: Kathleen Orosz

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8 The third volume in the projected ``Orphan Train Quartet'' tells the story of 12-year-old Megan Kelly after Emma and Benjamin Browder take her to live with them on the Kansas prairie. This exciting and touching novel projects an aura of historical reality. Megan believes that she brings bad luck to herself and those around her because of a gypsy curse. This image of herself as a ``bad-luck penny'' colors her perceptions of everything that happens to her and her loved ones until her kind foster mother helps her to understand that life can be what she makes it. Slowly she gains confidence in herself and is instrumental in saving her family from a killer on the run. The historical aspects of In the Face of Danger will have particular interest and appeal to this generation of children who hear so much about the problems of today's foster, abandoned, and street children that they will be able to relate to and understand the problems of the Kelly children and others like them 130-some odd years ago. Janet E. Gelfand, Lawrence Junior High School, N.Y.

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