DEAR CANADA: North West Resistance

I have to admit that I just could not get into this one. I remember reading it when I got it and it being okay, but it's got several problems. The story is very slow-paced and extremely sad, but there's also the usual struggle I find with books written by Trottier. She provides a glossary, but that doesn't cover all the words used, and there's no pronunciation guide. It always bothers me when I have to read words over and over in the story and I have no idea how to say them. As this book involves multiple languages, this was very distracting to me, and the combination of all these problems made me just skim it, then set it aside.

DEAR CANADA & I AM CANADA: French and Indian War

I should have put all four of these together, since the previous review is from the same time period. All of these books cover the French and Indian War. The first one was the Acadian deportation. Brothers in Arms is about the fall of Fortress Louisbourg. The siege of Quebec is covered in both The Death of My Country and Storm the Fortress.

Maxine Trottier, who wrote the excellent Alone in an Untamed Land for Dear Canada, tackled three out of four of these books. The only one she didn't write was Brothers in Arms, which is written by Don Aker.

Brothers in Arms unfortunately was the most boring of the three, so Trottier once again proves herself as a strong historical author. The problem may not have been Aker, but the subject matter, because it's not exactly fun to read chapter after chapter of a losing battle.

The Death of My Country was far more interesting, being about an Abenaki girl, who was raised by a white woman and a white Ursuline nun in Quebec. They attempted the same with her older brother, but he left for the Abenaki settlement instead. His white friend, who was adopted by the Abenaki, is the most fun character and I hoped he and Geneviève would end up together, but nope, he dies and she ends up with a Scottish dude. Eh. He was okay, but I preferred the other guy by far. This book is okay, although I find it a little divorced from the action.
Geneviève does help the wounded, but I never got the feeling she was in danger much and her lifestyle doesn't change much throughout the book. Good, but nowhere near as good as Alone in an Untamed Land. The Christmas short story in A Christmas to Remember is all right, but feels quite tacked on, although that's a problem with several of these, if I recall.

Storm the Fortress was pretty good, because so many of these male-fronted historical books are all war, war, war, battles, battles, battles. This is definitely war, but there's also a lot about ship life, which is pretty interesting. It's also from the British perspective, so quite different from the other three.

So I've learned more than I ever wanted to know about the French and Indian War, and I'm very glad to be done with it and moving on to what is possibly my favorite Dear America ever.

DEAR CANADA: BANISHED FROM OUR HOME

This is not one of the feel good books of this series. It's about something I knew nothing about before reading it: the deportation of the Acadians. The Acadians were a seperate group of settlers who lived in one specific place. They were caught between the French and English during the French and Indian War, and, suspected of aiding the French, were deported by the English. They were thrown onto ships, many times separating families in what would end up being a permanent way, and sending them off to various places in the colonies. Many would end up migrating to Louisiana.

Angélique Richard and her family are split apart by this conflict. One brother goes off to fight the English, the other two are held by the English as is her father, but in separate places. Her elder sister chooses to stay with the family of her husband and the Richards never learn what happened to her. Family members die during and after the journey by ship.

One of the reasons I've taken such a break from my Dear America etc. reread is that this book is on the depressing side and I kept setting it down. Being stuck in this hotel until our apartment is fixed, I have little to do right now but read, so last night, I made myself finish Angélique's book and the accompanying Christmas story, which is found in A Season for Miracles. They're great because they're educational, but not exactly uplifting.

DEAR CANADA: ALONE IN AN UNTAMED LAND

Well, we have finally made it to our first foray into the Dear Canada series. This series has some great writers. Maxine Trottier unfortunately only did this, one other DC and one I Am Canada, the boy-fronted equivalent series. But this is one of my top Dear Canadas for sure. I haven't reread them all recently, though obviously, I'll be doing so as we go along, but I can only think of maybe 3 other contenders for favorite.

Hélène and her older sister Catherine are French orphans. Catherine agrees to be one of the Filles du Roi, who are girls willing to travel to the New World and become wives for the large number of unmarried men in New France. Unfortunately, Catherine dies on the journey over and by the end of the sea voyage, Hélène has agreed to take her place, even though she's only 13.

I'm not going to tell the entire story here, because I urge all of you with an interest in historical fiction to track this book down. This is a little known group of very, very brave girls and I had no idea they existed before I read this. That's one thing I really enjoy about the Dear Canada series. I don't know much about Canadian history, so I learned a lot by reading these. Dear America are educational, too, of course, but we learn at least a little about a lot of those times during our school years. We don't learn Canadian history, not being Canadian.

All of the main characters are great: Hélène, Jean Aubry and his daughter Kateri, Hélène's feisty Tante Barbe, and even her cat Minette has a big personality. I'm fairly sure you'll love them as I do once you've finished the story.

My only criticism is that the book could have been a bit more educational by including not just the French glossary, but also pronunciations for those words and names. There is a LOT of French speckled throughout the diary entries, but if you're like me and you have no background in French aside from hearing people in TV shows and movies pronouncing things, you're guessing at pronunciations and that can get frustrating.

Dear Canada took things one step farther than Dear America and actually continued these girls' stories. There are currently three anthologies of Christmas stories, one for each of the girls who have gotten a diary so far. (I'm guessing. If anyone is missing, we'll know by the end of these reviews.) Hélène's story is in A Season for Miracles, the first of these anthologies. I can't say much about it without giving away key details of the plot of the main book, but it is as good as the original story. Although I was a bit annoyed that one of the characters is misnamed in the short. SeraphiN was in the book, but SeraphiM is in the short story. Not quite right! Not sure if that's author or editor, but someone made an error.

Ugh, next up is the Salem witch trials Dear America. I HATE the Salem witch trials. But in the upcoming batch of books, I've got 3 more Dear Canadas, Royal Diaries for Marie-Antoinette and Catherine, one I Am Canada that I haven't read yet, and one of my favorite Dear Americas. Just need to make it through the damn witch trials. Maybe I can knock it out today and then move on to something I like better tomorrow.