A review by sandiet
The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham

5.0

Oh man...this sat on my Kindle app for months. I worked at it little by little, not because it's not good (quite the opposite in fact) but simply because the story is so heartbreaking and unfortunately it's a work of fiction about true events. This is my second book by this author and I have another one of hers on my Kindle...yes I like the way she tells a story. The Forgotten Home Child is about England's scheme to clean up the streets by sending poor, unwanted children overseas to be taken care of by families. The problem was that the majority of these children suffered greatly at the hands of these people who were supposed to take care of them. Most of them were treated as indentured servants with no rights and no recourse. Forgotten by everyone basically, no follow-up from the agency who shipped them off and definitely no more than a mouth to feed by the people who "cared" for them.
There are two different timelines, and the story is told by Winnie starting in 2018 when she's 97 and in 1936 when she's 15. I love books with different timelines and different POV's and this one didn't disappoint.
At the end of the book Ms. Graham provides a lot of insight into why she wrote the book and how she did her research. Many heartbreaking stories that apparently are only coming to light in recent years because of things like ancestry.ca. Unfortunately a lot of history is already lost because people were ashamed of the stigma of being a "home child" and therefore took their heritage/stories to their graves.
Any book that teaches and opens our eyes to injustices past and present is typically a 5 star for me.
Excellent book!

Thanks to NetGalley & Simon & Shuster Canada for the ARC and allowing me to write an unbiased review.
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