"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....

Twin sisters Nettie and Nellie Crook are taken away from their disfunctional parents in 1910 when they are only five years old, and placed in an orphanage--at six they are put on the orphan train by the Children's Aid Society and moved from New York City to Kansas, ending up in a household where they are treated more as servants than children.

"When their widowed mother can no longer support them, six siblings are sent on the orphan train by the Children's Aid Society of New York City to live with farm families in Missouri in 1860"--WorldCat.

Twelve-year-old Rory Fitzpatrick loves her younger sister, Violet, more than anyone in the world. She has been Violet's only family ever since their parents died and they went to live at the Sisters of Charity Foundling Hospital in New York. Rory promised she would always protect her sister, would never leave her. So when Rory learns that the nuns are sending Violet to an adoptive family out West, Rory is determined to follow and keep her family together...