Avaliant little boy, orphaned at four and adopted at five, struggles to be accepted as a normal kid in a rural Oklahoma community during the 1930s. This is a community where everyone knows everybody else and where common wisdom holds that children adopted from the orphans' home always go bad and end up in jail. His adopted parents are basically kind and well-meaning, but they have no idea what the boy is experiencing; his fears of being sent back to the orphans' home, his desperate wanting to belong. Blessed with a remarkable intelligence, curiosity, and resilience, the boy learns to adapt to his new world and is helped by teachers and friends at Round Grove School. By the time he graduates from the eighth grade, he has come to grips with his adoption, and has learned valuable lessons that will assist him in later life. Out East of Aline is not only the story of one boy's adoption as told from a child's perspective, but offers new insights into daily life in rural Oklahoma during the Depression years. Rex Wilson's absorbing re-creation of his life as an orphan in Oklahoma during the depression era offers vivid views of farm family life, country school happenings, and the seasonal security of community celebrations. Rex has the cadence of Southwestern speech and character down to hilarious perfection.