Although it is meant to be the third and final installment in Donna Nordmark Aviles’s “Orphan Train” series, Peanut Butter for Cupcakes stands alone as a fine historical fiction novel depicting the real life experiences of a Pennsylvania family living through the Great Depression. Oliver Nordmark (the author’s real life grandfather) grew up without parents of his own. Orphaned at a young age, he was shipped out west via the “orphan train” movement and given away to a Kansas couple as a cheap farm laborer. As depicted in the first two books of this series, Oliver passes through the hands of several families without ever completely being a part of one.
As Peanut Butter for Cupcakes opens, Oliver is a grown man with a wife and six children living in the Pocono Mountain region of Pennsylvania. When Oliver loses his job and a tragic accident takes the life of his wife, he struggles to support his children and ultimately has to seek help from the same Child Services organization which once sent him out as a farm hand. PB for C focuses mainly on the life of Oliver’s children as they try to stick together through various foster care arrangements, as well as Oliver’s attempts to make a living and take his children back into his own care.
The title refers to the youngest Nordmark’s attempt to trade a peanut butter sandwich (which was his lunch everyday) for a sweet, scrumptious cupcake brought by another student to school. The effort fails, and yet Benny Nordmark doesn’t give up hope that someday he might be able to turn his “peanut butter life” into a “cupcake.” Benny and his brothers are lively and rambunctious. Although readers will find some of their foster parents harsh and unkind, it is also obvious that the Nordmark brood were a handful. Schoolyard pranks, horseplay with rifles, and accidentally setting a field on fire are just some of the hijinks these rascals get up to. Interspersed with the boys’ pranks and the rough life in foster care are heartwarming stories of the Nordmark family during time with their father, such as when Oliver drives the family to visit the World’s Fair, even though they cannot afford to do anything but look.
This book is highly recommended as a study of life in the Great Depression through historical fiction. ( )