The Orphanage

"A Margellos World Republic of Letters Book."

A gritty, heartbreaking story of love and hope in the darkest of times, perfect for readers of Erika Robuck and Shirley Dickson. Shilling Grange Orphanage, England, 1948: Clara Newton is the new housemother of Shilling Grange Orphanage. Many of the children have been bombed out of their homes and left without families, their lives torn apart by the war, just like Clara's. Devastated by the loss of her fiancé, a brave American pilot, Clara needs a place to start again and the orphans are in desperate need of her help. But funds are short, children cry out in the night, and the tearful girls tells Clara terrible stories about the nuns who previously ran Shilling Grange. Clara cannot bear to see them suffer, yet it soon becomes clear that she's in over her head. But Clara is not completely alone. Living next door is Ivor: war hero and handyman with deep brown eyes. Having grown up at the orphanage, he's also hesitant to trust anyone. Yet his gentle voice and bottomless patience helps him soothe the orphans better than anyone. With his help, the orphans--and Clara--have someone to give them hope. But does she dare she open her heart to love again?

Sam Watkins, an orphaned young teenager, possesses the ability to read the minds of almost everyone he meets. Howard Lyons, the owner of the orphanage where Sam has lived since he was a baby, has been reluctant to let Sam leave the orphanage. Unable to read the mind of Mr Lyons, he takes it upon himself to investigate the reasons behind the owner's decisions and learn more about the origin of his ability, his parents and the potential of his power. However, Sam's investigation and mind-reading abilities reveal a power struggle at the top of a faltering orphanage between Mr. Lyons and his assistant Natalie. Sam's involvement in this conflict leads him to look for ways to save the orphanage and uncover the true motivations of both the owner and his assistant while trying to learn about his past.

New York Times bestselling author Emily Winfield Martin brings a strange and wonderful place to life with her unique style of both art and writing. What do an onion-headed boy, a child-sized hedgehog, and a tattooed girl have in common? They are all orphans at Oddfellow's Orphanage! This unusual and charming chapter book tells an episodic story that follows a new orphan, Delia, as she discovers the delights of her new home. From classes in Cryptozoology and Fairy Tale Studies to trips to the circus, from Annual Hair Cutting Day to a sea monster-sighting field trip, things at Oddfellows are anything but ordinary . . . except when it comes to friendships. And in that, Oddfellows is like any other school where children discover what they mean to each other while learning how big the world really is.

How could it be wrong to save the children by starting an orphanage? Oh, in so many ways . . . Tara Winkler first arrived in Cambodia to join a tour group in 2005 and was taken to visit a small orphanage in Battambang. The children were living in extreme poverty, and Tara was determined to raise money to help them. Two years later, after fundraising in Australia, Tara returned to Battambang only to discover that the same children were in deep trouble. Her spontaneous response was to find them a new, safe, home. With a team of committed locals and support from friends, she established the Cambodian Children's Trust (CCT). With an instant family of fourteen children and three dogs, Tara had to learn a lot, very fast. And, along the way, she realised that many of the actions she took with good intentions were not at all what the children needed - or indeed, what any child needs. CCT now helps vulnerable children to escape poverty and be cared for within their families. In this compelling, poignant and funny memoir, Tara shares the many joys and the terrible lows of her journey thus far with honesty and passion. Written with co-writer, Lynda Delacey, How (Not) to Start an Orphanage is a book that will keep you thinking long after you turn the final page.

The author practices Optometry in the Atlanta area, and serves as a legal consultant to optometrists and related health care professionals. He holds an undergraduate degree in Physics-Mathematics, and post-graduate degrees in Law and Optometry. Dr. Provost is a member of The Florida Bar and The Georgia Bar, and is licensed to practice Optometry in Florida and Georgia. He lives in an Atlanta suburb with his wife Evelyn, an attorney, and their four champion Persians, who have replaced in both intelligence and charm, four talented children who have gone on to careers in Optometry, teaching and real estate. The author graduated from Berry College near Rome, Georgia in 1961. While at Berry College in the late fifties the author was President of the Freshman Class, Treasurer of the Sophomore Class, Secretary, Vice-president and finally President of the Men's Student Government. At the end of his Junior year he became the first ever recipient of the Jessie Pritchett Parish Student Leadership Award, presented to the one student among the entire student body who best demonstrated leadership qualities on campus. While at Berry College the author rewrote the Berry College Handbook for Men. Following graduation in 1961, the author enlisted in the U. S. Army. He served two tours of duty in South Korea, the first as the feature writer for The Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper, distributed daily to more than 37,000 U. S. soldiers in South Korea. The young reporter covered all meetings of the Military Armistice Commission (MAC) held at Panmunjom, and traveled freely throughout South Korea in his assigned Jeep, writing about anything of a military or civilian nature that interested him or that might be of interest to his readers. At age 24 the author was accepted as a student at the prestigious Defense Language Institute, located at Monterey, California, where he studied the Korean language for a year, graduating first in his class of thirty students. Following months of instruction at the U. S. Army Intelligence Center located at Ft. Holabird, Maryland, the author was stationed with the 502 Military Intelligence Battalion in Seoul, South Korea. As the youngest of the five prisoner interrogators and intelligence analysts, the specialist daily interrogated captured North Korean espionage agents and their 'minders" who had failed in their attempt to infiltrate the irregular coastline of South Korea. These experiences are the subject of the author's soon to be published book entitled The Wall at Inchon. In 1965 the author received an Honorable Discharge from the U. S. Army, and in 1967 was accepted as a student at the University of Houston College of Optometry. Dr. Provost graduated in 1972 with the degree Doctor of Optometry, and began his private practice of Optometry in the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida suburb of Plantation. In 1977 Dr. Provost was accepted into Nova Southeastern University College of Law, graduating in 1980 with the degree Juris Doctor. He has practiced Optometry since 1972 and Law since 1980, in Georgia and Florida. The author was born in Kinston, North Carolina in 1939, the knee baby of seven children. Following the sudden death of his father, a wartime U. S. civil service engineer, in February 1947 the seven-year-old was sent to live for a decade in historic Oxford Orphanage, located northeast of Raleigh. Dr. Provost's Reflections in An Orphan's Eye-A Decade at Oxford is the first book written about the historic 132-year-old institution since Nettie Bemis' popular Life at Oxford, published in1925. However, whereas Nettie Bemis' work centered around the history and campus life at Oxford, Dr. Provost's work, while recounting the history of the institution, is a factual, bittersweet narrative of a youngster's decade-long odyssey spent growing up 'inside the hedges." This work is a moving account of how tradition rich Oxford Orphanage and its four hundred students and staff grabbed a timid, disillusion

"In The Charleston Orphan House, distinguished economic historian John E. Murray uncovers a world about which previous generations of scholars knew next to nothing: the world of orphaned children in early national and antebellum America. Employing a unique cache of records, Murray offers a sensitive and sympathetic account of the history of the institution - the first public orphan house in the US - while at the same time making it clear that Charleston's beneficence toward white orphans was inextricably linked to the racial ideology of the city's leaders. In Murray's hands, the voices of poor white families in early America are heard as never before." -- Peter A Coclanis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. -- Book jacket.