The Orphan Collector

German immigrant Pia Lange, then thirteen, longs to leave Philadelphia's crammed shantytowns and the anti-immigrant attitude that drove her father to enlist in the American Army in the fall of 1918. However, just as her city is celebrating the end of the war, a more serious threat—the Spanish flu—appears. As victims lie in the streets, funeral crepe and quarantine signs appear on doors, and desperate survivors cover their faces with white masks to avoid getting sick. Pia has to leave her little brothers behind and go alone into the quarantined city in quest of supplies when the food in her small tenement runs out.

After her infant perished from the Spanish flu, Bernice Groves has descended into a deep state of grief and resentment. As Bernice sees Pia walk away from her brothers, she takes a startlingly important decision. Her evil objective is to split up families when they are most vulnerable in order to turn the city's immigrant and orphan children into what she perceives to be "true Americans."

Days after collapsing in the street, Pia wakes up in a temporary hospital and is eager to get home. Rather, she is brought to St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum, which is the beginning of a protracted and difficult journey. In the months and years that follow, Pia must face her own dread and guilt as Bernice schemes to conceal the truth at any costs. She must risk everything to finally witness justice—and love— prevail. The Orphan Collector is a moving, terrifying, and ultimately joyful tale about love, resiliency, and the extent people will go to in order to safeguard those who are closest to them.