Another fun book finished and another great book I do recommend everyone reads. The book is The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham and is about Home Children that were sent from England to Canada from sometime in the 1800s all the way past WWII.
This particular book follows the journey of Winny from the streets of London after her parents were no longer able to support her. They essentially gave her up because they couldn’t afford to feed her anymore as was the case with many poor families in England in those days.
My favorite part about this book is that it’s a nice continuation of the books about Ireland I’ve been reading. As I recently learned, Ireland started into a population and well-being downward spiral beginning with the great famine starting in 1845 but it took a long time to actually end. The population continued to decline for the next 70+ years including when this book took place.
It so happens that our main character, Winny, and her family came from the poor country of Ireland in the early 1900s. They left Ireland to make their way in London and hopefully have a better life. That didn’t exactly happen so Winny ended up on their own which led to her path to becoming a Home Child and her nickname given to her by her friends happens to be “Irish”.
What is a Home Child? They’re one of the thousands (hundreds of thousands maybe) of kids sent from England to Canada as essentially paid labor. At least that’s how the farmers in Canada saw it, as nearly fee labor.
During the great depression that greatly affected Canada also, the farmers didn’t have much of anything and farming as far north as Canada isn’t easy. That made them jump on the opportunity at free labor from the orphanages in England that were trying to find a place in the world for all the kids they were caring for.
So the book follows the journey of Winny, Mary, Jack, and a few others (can’t remember all their names). They were lucky enough to stay together in the orphanages in England but all got separated in Canada. Their lives became extremely difficult and many horrible things happened to them all but to varying degrees.
The book jumps between Winny telling her grand kids the story of her life in the modern day and the actual story from her and other’s point of view. We hear from Mary and Jack also as they make their way through life and difficult times.
It’s such a great book and an interesting way to learn about some things that occurred in Canada. It’s not all roses that’s for sure. The Forgotten Home Child is another great way to learn about historical events that not many talk about. It’s a great tale with some interesting history intertwined within it.
It’s the best way to learn and be entertained at the same time.
Read it!
Business Up Next
The next book I picked out to read is The Rise Of America by Marin Katusa which after reading the sample was mediocre but I still wanted to try it. I’m more than 100 pages into as of this writing and it’s still mediocre but I know I’ll learn something from it at least.
The goal that the author states is to write it for people who know nothing about the topics of monetary policy and finance. They didn’t entirely succeed with all the acronyms and sometime very little explanation about what the heck they even mean.
I’ve learned a few things from it but overall I’m not sure how helpful it is. I haven’t’ read the whole thing, so I can’t judge it entirely. That will come in a weeks time when I finish it. I have some other topics I’d like to write about but that hasn’t happened so far. It will, though.