"Martha Drusso, accidentally gets pregnant and is thrown out of her home. She ends up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during the dust bowl days. She is staying at a mission where she helps serve the needy in return for her room in board. One day, she finds an abandoned boy, R.C., who she takes in. Some weeks later, she helps a pregnant woman deliver, who later dies in childbirth. Now she has another mouth to feed. But she can't abandon the boy and the girl who need her. The three live as well as they can. One day, Martha has to return to Texas to go to her father's funeral. The children get anxious because she has not returned and the mission is threatening to throw them out. R.C. buys them a train ticket despite the fact he is only about 8 years old and Belle is now 3. While getting them something to eat, the train on which he left his stepsister pulls out. And unfortunately it is not bound for Texas it is going to L.A. R.C. gets on the correct train and finds Martha only to tell her the tragic news. The two spend the rest of the book, wondering if they will ever find her and wondering if she is still alive. Martha also laments over her lost love Charlie who ran off with another woman. The writer cleverly interweaves three story lines--that of what happens to Belle, that of Martha and R.C. and the other children she takes in, and that of Charlie who will one day come home to Texas. Belle's life changes the most as each turn brings her further out of poverty. She lives first at a parsonage, then she is left with a Japanese couple who love her very much because they can't have their own. She doesn't understand why the Japanese are taken away during WWII. Neither does she understand the later hatred of black people that she encounters when she is with her black housekeeper. She lives with a wealthy couple in Arkansas, before ending up finally in California, marrying a hollywood producer, and then ending up a widow a few years later. Somehow, by the end, the small family reunites through very unusual circumstances."
BethG, Resident Scholar
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Review Analysis of Lost and Found
Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book?
- thoughtful
Time/era of story
- 1930's-1950's
Kids growing up/acting up?
Yes
Kids:
- struggling to earn a living to survive
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Age group of kid(s) in story:
- grade school
Parents/lack of parents problem?
- orphan story
Main Character
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- student
Age:
- a kid
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Turkish
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- society
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- an above average amount
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 4 (a fair amount)
United States
Yes
The US:
- Texas
- Deep South
- California
Misc setting
- fancy mansion
Style
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- vague references
Amount of dialog
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
