Throughout the novel, many characters wish to know more about their family history, including Billy, Chrissie, and Jamie. How are their motivations the same? How are they different? Why is knowing their personal history so important to their sense of self and family?
Discuss the theme of forgiveness in the novel. In your opinion, do Mistress Adams and Mistress Renfrew do enough to atone for their actions? Should Winny’s family forgive her for keeping secrets? Do you think it’s possible to forgive a wrong even if it is never forgotten?
Consider the dual timeline structure of the novel. How does this reflect the experience of the Home Children?
Discuss the significance of the title The Forgotten Home Child.
ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB
Have you ever looked up your own ancestry? Are you wondering if you are one of the 12 percent of Canadians descended from Home Children? Visit the British Home Children website here: https://www.britishhomechildren.com/. Or dig deeper in their Registry, where they have catalogued more than 70,000 of the children: http://www.britishhomechildrenregistry.com.
And check out the Government of Canada immigration records: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/immigration-records/home-children-1869-1930/immigration-records/Pages/search.aspx.
Read the poem “Forgotten Children” by Walter Richard Williams. How does this novel overlap with and differ from the poem’s summary of the Home Children’s experiences? In what ways is this book also a testament to the lives of the Home Children?
Though the Home Children are not well-known, Guest Children, or “the lucky ones,” were equally little known. Read more about them here: https://ingeniumcanada.org/channel/articles/digital-archives-canadas-guest-children-during-second-world-war. How did their situations differ from Home Children? Why do you think they were treated much better?
About the Author
© JANICE BRAY
GENEVIEVE GRAHAM is the bestselling author of Tides of Honour, Promises to Keep, Come from Away, and At the Mountain’s Edge. She is passionate about breathing life back into history through tales of love and adventure. She lives near Halifax, Nova Scotia.
GenevieveGraham.com
@GenGrahamAuthor
@SimonSchusterCA
www.SimonandSchuster.ca/Authors/Genevieve-Graham
ALSO BY GENEVIEVE GRAHAM
At the Mountain’s Edge
Come from Away
Promises to Keep
Tides of Honour
Under the Same Sky
Sound of the Heart
Somewhere to Dream
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Genevieve Graham
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This Simon & Schuster Canada edition March 2020
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Interior design by Lewelin Polanco
Cover photograph © Krasimira Petrova Shishkova/Trevillion Images
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: The forgotten home child / by Genevieve Graham.
Names: Graham, Genevieve, author.
Identifiers: Canadiana 20190130105 | ISBN 9781982128951 (softcover)
Classification: LCC PS8613.R3434 F67 2020 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
ISBN 978-1-9821-2895-1
ISBN 978-1-9821-2896-8 (ebook)