91 Books Like Orphans

Newberry Honor book winner Gail Carson Levine beautifully captures the life of eleven-year-old Dave, a troublemaking orphan in 1926, and his time in New York’s Hebrew Home for Boys.

When I years ago read this book to my son, who was abut Dave’s age, both of us became enthralled with not only the vivid description of the sometimes tough and rigid orphanage in the Lower East Side, but also Dave’s late-night adventures into the beautiful music and among the kind strangers and leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance.

Loosely based on her father’s time in New York’s Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Levine opens a window and lets us hear the Yiddish sounds and lets us peak into the early twentieth-century world of Jewish orphanages, while also celebrating the boisterous joys of friendship with unlikely partners.

The author of nearly three dozen nonfiction books for young people, Catherine Reef reveals through her clear writing, first-hand accounts, and photographs what it was really like for a child to grow up in an orphanage in America from the mid-1850s to the early 20th century when nearly all of these congregate dependent childcare institutions closed.

Reef also includes a satisfying Afterword that lets us know “where life led some of the children” who appeared in her book. Although intended for a young reader, Alone in the World also proved a strong resource to me in writing my book and will interest anyone who wants a thoughtful and deeply-researched overview of this topic.

Kim Van Alkemade wrote this New York Times bestselling novel based upon a series of real-life experiences, including those of her great-grandmother who worked as a counselor in New York’s Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

Orphan #8 is a powerful and unforgettable book about Rachel, who after being placed in New York’s Hebrew Infant Home, is subjected to experimental radiation treatments as Dr. Mildred Solomon bolsters her medical reputation at the expense of the little girl’s health.

The story focuses on Rachel, now an adult nurse, when Dr. Solomon becomes her patient. Given the widespread popularity of this book, I know I was not the only reader riveted by Rachel’s choice between compassion and retribution, and the extraordinary human capacity to cause harm and to love. 

Perhaps the standard bearer in scholarly research about the history of orphanages in America, U Mass Boston Professor Timothy Hacsi’s Second Home is essential reading for anyone seriously studying the subject.

Armed with tables that cogently summarize – by decade - the number and types of orphanages, their populations, funding sources, and staffing ratios, Hacsi surveys the landscape of American public policy in the 19th and 20th centuries as religious groups, Progressives, and ultimately government responded to the needs of dependent children and families. 

This book combined the old west with a very thought-out magic system that enhanced the setting. The humor was sometimes tear-drawingly funny for me. The characters seemed alive, complex, and independent. The world seemed real and tangible if not quite like our world. The magic also had a refreshing take and allows for infinite speculation on how the powers might cross-combine. It also had moments of monumental exercises of power as well as monumental limits on powers complicating the storyline.

In a world where love is forbidden, witness the blossoming of an epic love story. As someone who rarely enjoys romance novels, Lauren Oliver’s Delirium hooked me in and had me finish in less than two days. Oliver has a way with words that left me feeling every emotion the main character felt, and had me diving into the second book the moment I finished the first. It’s a beautiful dystopian, and was the first book I read that got me hooked on the genre. If you are a fan of The Hunger Games, then you’ll love Delirium!

I could easily have recommended any of the Lemony Snicket books here, but this one distinguishes itself from the other entries in the series by being darker and with higher stakes than the books that came before or after it.

I appreciated how this book outshone its siblings by giving a twisted representation of medical systems (albeit through a humorous lens) as well as poking fun at medical charities and medical education. The series’ normally clownish villain becomes a more serious threat here. This book is the installment where the story grew up.

I liked it not only as a humorous children’s book but as a thriller and a horror novel.

The Long Season of Rain (the title refers to the monsoons that afflict the Korean Peninsula at the start of summer) reminds us that in Hell Chosŏn women remain subservient to men in almost every sphere of society, and learn early on to endure silently instead of speaking out. This novel exemplifies the richness of Korean-American young-adult novels, which often focus on coming of age and the quest for identity. Especially poignant is the author’s use of a naïve narrator, the daughter of a woman who learns that her husband has taken a concubine.

I was immediately engaged in the story of a nurse who follows a man to Mayotte and, unable to conceive, adopts a child whom she brings up by herself after the man abandons her. She dies abruptly, however, and the story changes completely, turning into an intense, violent novel about children in the slums. The orphan who fled after his mother's death is horribly abused by another young teenager who is a gang leader, and can free himself only by killing him in the end. I am in awe of Nathacha Appanah for her ability to capture the voice of street children. This is a poignant, powerful, and beautifully written novel about harassment, cruelty, and possession. 

I have to be honest, K.M. Peyton is one of the best natural writers to draw breath IMHO and this beautiful and gripping story of a teen girl in Victorian England who seems destined to moulder away in a thwarted life, finding instead rebellion, wildness and love, is right up there with her best.

All books are for all people, of course, but this one (like many of her books) was marketed to teen girls in particular. Personally, I cried often, was moved and delighted by heroine Charlotte’s spirit and fight, and by the vital essence that runs through the story.

When true love comes, it comes, like an avalanche through our lives, beautiful and destructive, but who would not choose that?