The Orphan Keeper

The Orphan Keeper by Camron Wright
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The real reason I wanted to read this book so badly is that I stumbled upon LION, a movie based on the true story of a boy in India who finds himself far from home then further from home via adoption, and his quest to find his Indian family. I was fascinated and memorized by his account.

The truth about children in India who become homeless or sold is horrific and not for the faint of heart. In fact, I just finished another book (I forgot which one) of a girl raised to be a prostitute and her experiences in the sex trade, held hostage for years. The boy in ORPHAN KEEPER has a unique story in that he is kidnapped from a loving home and sold to an orphanage to be adopted out. He is treated well and ends up in a loving home in Utah where his new parents have no idea he is not an orphan. Because of the language barrier, the newly named Taj is incapable of communicating this until much later.

What I learned from the previous books I read about children in India, particularly when they don't even know the town they are from, is that most children die in the streets or in the sex trade. Which is why I am befuddled why he was targeted to be kidnapped with so many homeless children. The true story of how he was kidnapped is probably not well remembered and the recounting is postulated. But finding his way back home would take nothing short of many miracles to reunite himself with the family he forgets for a time in order to focus on going on in this new culture. In fact, I watched a short review of his story with the author of the book so I know some events were postulated, some were skipped, while others were simplified.

The story of Taj's memories returning was simplified for the sake of the flow of the book. In fact, Taj serves a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in England and is reintroduced to the foods and smells he knew so well as a child which stimulates brief snippets of memory. This is introduced differently but with a great deal of clever artistic license.

Great story. Recommend book for book clubs.