Summary of The Home for Unwanted Girls: The heart-wrenching, gripping story of a mother-daughter bond that could not be broken – inspired by true events: Conversation Starters

By Paul Mani

The Home for Unwanted Girls: The heart-wrenching, gripping story of a mother-daughter bond that could not be broken – inspired by true events by Joanna Goodman: Conversation Starters 

Fifteen-year-old Maggie is the daughter of a poor French woman and a middle-class Englishman in post-war Quebec. She falls in love with a poor French boy, Gabriel Phenix, who lives in the next farm but her father looks down on the relationship. She becomes pregnant and is forced to give up her baby for adoption. When the Quebec government decides to give more funding to mental institutions instead of orphanages, her daughter Elodie is unjustly considered mentally ill. Maggie marries a businessman and is ready to start a family but is haunted by the memory of the daughter she left behind. Will she be reunited with her?

The Home for Unwanted Girls is a #1 bestseller in Canada and is in the bestseller lists of national publications. It is written by Joanna Goodman, author of The Finishing School.

A Brief Look Inside:

EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPER

than the surface of its pages. The characters and their world come alive,

and the characters and its world still live on.

Conversation Starters is peppered with questions designed to

bring us beneath the surface of the page

and invite us into the world that lives on.

These questions can be used to create hours of conversation:

Foster a deeper understanding of the book

Promote an atmosphere of discussion for groups

Assist in the study of the book, either individually or corporately

Explore unseen realms of the book as never seen before

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• Language: English
• Publisher: BH
• Release date: Apr 16, 2019

Book preview

Author

Introducing The Home for Unwanted Girls

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HE HOME FOR UNWANTED GIRLS IS A NOVEL BASED ON THE HISTORICAL facts about government policy on orphanages in post-war Quebec. It is written by Joanna Goodman.

The story is set in Quebec after World War II when French and English speaking people were hostile to each other. Fifteen-year-old Maggie is the daughter of a poor French woman and a middle-class Englishman. She falls in love with a poor French boy, Gabriel Phenix, who lives in the next farm but her father looks down on the relationship.

She becomes pregnant and is forced to give up her baby for adoption so she won't be disowned by her parents. The child is taken to an orphanage and is reared by French nuns. Named Elodie, her young life takes a precarious turn when the Quebec government decides to give more funding to mental institutions instead of orphanages, causing orphanages to declare their wards as mentally ill patients. Elodie survives the bad treatment she gets from nuns and finally gets her freedom when she turns 17. Maggie marries a businessman and is ready to start a family but is haunted by the memory of the daughter she left behind. She meets Gabriel by chance and makes a difficult decision. The lives of Maggie and Elodie run parallel to each other but they never seem to meet until Maggie decides to go after what she truly wants in life. She looks for Elodie, her lost daughter, and reclaims the truth that marred her and her daughter's