Nikolai, the Only Bear is a story about a bear who lives in an orphanage (in Russia. Nikolai is the only bear in the orphanage. He is three years old. He tries to play with the other children, but they are afraid of him. His caregivers are constantly telling him to say hello, say thank you, play nice, sing the same lyrics as everyone else at music class. The problem is, Nikolai does say all those things, but the caregivers and the other children don’t speak bear. The softly colored illustrations show the orphans playing and being cared for in … Continue reading →

The Orphan Train Children series, a spin-off of the Orphan Train Adventures Series, tells the story of children who were sent West on “orphan trains” to be fostered by townspeople. The children in this series are fictional; the orphan trains themselves are not. In Will’s Choice, twelve-year-old Will, whose mother died when he was four, travels with his father who works in a circus. When Will shows no signs of being talented enough to earn a living with the circus (okay, he’s rather clumsy), his father tells him that he has arranged for him to go “on a grand adventure”—to … Continue reading →