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.