DEAR CANADA: Typhus Epidemic

A Sea of Sorrows follows Johanna Leary and her family across the ocean from Ireland to Canada. Along the way, a few people are lost to "ship's fever," but once they land, people really start dying like flies. Johanna lost her baby brother on the ship, but then loses both her parents in Canada. Her older brother Michael is separated from her and he finds work, while she ends up with nuns. Due to a horrible misunderstanding, her brother thnks she's dead and sets out on his own to find their uncle. Johanna struggles with people's prejudice against the Irish and eventually ends up with a nice family, but then they're struck with misfortune and will return to England. They can't afford to take Johanna, but she won't go anyway, not having given up on finding Michael. He turns up at the end thankfully and she goes to live with him and their uncle.

This book is quite good, but it really is a sea of sorrows. It's one tragedy after the next and there's not one but two uppity, prejudiced women that never get their comeuppance. That always frustrates me.

A Sea of Sorrows has a Christmas story in the most recent of the three Dear Canada holiday anthologies, A Time for Giving. It's quite good and nice to see that Johanna finally has a span of time without tragedy.

I'm going to change things up with the next review, because I just got the newest Dear Canada book in the mail yesterday and I want to read it right now instead of waiting. It's set in 1966, so it would be quite a lot of waiting! But it's about a girl who has to go to Residential School written by an author that actually went to Residential School. This isn't like the notoriously disrespectful Ann Rinaldi book from the Dear America series. This is someone writing from actual experience and I'm so eager to read this.