Toggling between the lives of three individuals, Keeper of Lost Children explores how one woman’s vision will change the course of countless lives, and demonstrates that love in its myriad of forms—familial, parental, and forbidden, even love of self—can be transcendent.
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| February 2026; 37 Ink; 978-1668069912 audio, ebook, print (464 pages); historical fiction |
If you are looking for something to read for Black History Month, then this is the book to read (especially if you enjoy historical fiction). This book is so good. The weekend is the perfect time to read this because once you start it you won't realize how much time has passed.
I read a lot of WWII stories so I'm always surprised when I read about something I hadn't heard about before. Now this isn't truly a WWII book as it takes place after the war but it involves things that happened during the war.
The book follows three different timelines with three different characters but in the end all the timelines merge.
Ethel Gathers is a black woman stationed with her husband in 1950s Germany. She can't have children but desparetly wants them. She sees a group of brown children with a couple of nuns and follows them to the orphanage. There she learns about the brown babies - mixed race children with German mothers and black American fathers. Since the children are born out of wedlock, the mothers are treated as outcasts, often losing their jobs and homes.
Ozzie is a young black man from Philadelphia who in 1948 volunteers for the Army and is sent to Germany to help with the rebuilding. On the day he arrives in Germany, Truman has desegregated the Armed Forces. Acing the aptitude test, Ozzie hopes to go into Intellegience, but he is assigned to the motor pool instead. Though he has a girl back home, he falls for a German woman and fathers a child. Though he wants to be a real father to the child, his orders suddenly change and with little time he is shipped to another station. He returns to the states never knowing what happened to his daughter.
Sophia Clark lives on a farm in 1965. Her family is poor. Ma Deary works long shifts at the hospital so taking care of her younger brothers falls to Sophia along with many farm chores. School is her only escape and she dreams of an office job. She is given the opportunity to take a special test for a chance to attend a boarding school that is desegregating. She earns a full scholarship to the school where she is one of five black students. While talking with one of the other boys, she learns about black German children being adopted by American families. She has never felt like she fit in with her family and she wonders if she could be one of these children.
My advance copy didn't have an author's note with historical notes from the author (I'm not sure if the final version does either) so I looked up the Brown Baby Plan that is mentioned in the book. It was a true event but the woman who headed it up was named Mabel Grammer.
Johnson has created sympathetic characters that you can't help root for. While intellectually I knew of the struggles black people faced in the years following desegregation, I gained new insight and empathy reading the personal experiences of these characters.
I have to warn you that this book may cause a book hangover. I'm struggling to get into another book because I can't stop thinking about this book.
Buy Keepr of Lost Children at Amazon
Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.
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