Whistle-Stop West

Nine-year-old Ethan Cooper has managed to keep his family together for a year in a Pennsylvania orphanage. Now he and his siblings are boarding a train headed west. He can’t help but worry: Mr. and Mrs. Rush in Nebraska have agreed to adopt all four Cooper children, but what if they change their minds?

In the meantime, Ethan and his siblings encounter their first dust storm, explore train cars, and watch friend after friend leave with new parents. The children dream that soon they will have a new ma and pa too.

Based on the story of a real family, this second book in the historical Beyond the Orphan Train series reminds us that God never leaves us, no matter how far we journey to find home.

A teacher and librarian, Arleta Richardson was a beloved children’s author. Her popular Grandma’s Attic series, which recounts her grandmother’s childhood on a 19th-century farm on the shores of Lake Michigan, has reached more than 2 million people around the world.