Dear Canada Blood Upon Our Land

Josephine Bouvier keeps a diary of the difficult life during the Riel Rebellion in Saskatchewan in 1885.

A young girl watches as the Métis life she knows is threatened by conflict and the men in her family are called to action by Louis Riel, the charismatic leader of the North West Resistance. Tension grips Batoche, Saskatchewan in 1885. Many Métis moved here after the 1870 Riel Rebellion in Manitoba left them disallusioned. But life in Batoche is difficult. The buffalo on which the Métis depended for generations have been hunted almost to extinction, and the coming of white settlers poses a threat to their traditional way of life. The Métis want title to their land, but the government has delayed for years. Promises are no longer enough . . . and talk of a second uprising is in the air. Thirteen-year-old Josephine finds herself torn over her feelings about the Resistance: she is worried for her brother, who is eager to fight; for her father, who prefers a peaceful solution; for Edmond Swift Fox, her friend, whom she loves and will eventually marry; and for Louis Riel, the leader whose efforts to help the Métis preserve their way of life are actions she grows to respect and admire. Through Josephine's faithful diary entries, the reader is transported into this pivotal moment in Canadian history — the time leading up to the defeat of the Métis and the allied First Nations forces at Batoche, the execution of Louis Riel, and the growing tensions between English Canada and French Canada.

The dark threat of polio becomes a reality for a young Prairie girl. In the summer of 1937, life on the Prairies is not easy. The Great Depression has brought great hardship, and young Noreen's family must scrimp to make ends meet. In a horrible twist of fate, Noreen, like hundreds of other young Canadians, contracts polio and is placed in an isolation ward, unable to move her legs. After a few weeks she gains partial recovery, but her family makes the painful decision to send her to a hospital far away for further treatment. To Stand On My Own is Noreen's diary account of her journey through recovery: her treatment; life in the ward; the other patients, some of them far worse off than her; adjustment to life in a wheelchair and on crutches; and ultimately, the emotional and physical hurdles she must face when she returns home. In this moving addition to the Dear Canada series, award-winning author Barbara Haworth-Attard recreates a desolate time in Canadian history, and one girl's brave fight against a deadly disease.

With more than 200,000 books in print, Dear Canada has fast become the historical fiction series for young girls. It has been two long years since Eliza's beloved older brother, Hugo, went away to war. Caught up in his enthusiasm, she couldn't understand her parent's less-than enthusiastic reaction. Now that her other brother Jack has also enlisted, she yearns for the safe return of both brothers. If only she had a friend that she could talk to about her feelings....

The first Dear Canada featuring a First Nations diarist, The Death of My Country is set at a pivotal point in Canada's history -- the war between Britain and France for control of New France. Geneviève Aubuchon is born into an Abenaki tribe but is orphaned when another tribe destroys her village. She and her brother are taken to a convent in Québec.While Geneviève gradually adapts to her new life with the sisters, her older brother runs away to rejoin the Abenaki. Geneviève fears for his life when he joins the First Nations allies who are helping defend Québec against the British siege of the city and the attack on the Plains of Abraham. Author Maxine Trottier frequently participates in historical re-enactments. Her hobby has provided her with an opportunity to research and experience this key time in Canada's history.

Twelve original holiday stories from the top children's writers in the country! What an incredible gift book for Dear Canada fans! The twelve stories in this treasury are set around Christmas time and feature the young girls from a dozen previous Dear Canada books. Readers will be thrilled to reconnect with their favourites and get a glimpse of each character's life a year or so after the events in the actual diary are over. Anyone new to the Dear Canada series will be introduced to characters so compelling, they'll want to read more.

When Mary's family sides with the British against the American rebels, they are branded traitors and forced to flee their home. All they have is what they can carry with them -- and their determination and courage -- when they head north toward Canada. Along with other Loyalists they hope to start a new life in Québec, where there is land for those who have been loyal to the King. But the journey is treacherous, the winter bitterly cold, and the MacDonalds find it hard to survive. Even with supplies from Britain, clearing the land to build their home is a struggle... but one they survive to forge a new life in a new land.

In these eleven original stories, characters bravely face the challenges of settling into a new life. In this wonderful new short story anthology, eleven of Canada's top children's authors contribute stories of immigration, displacement and change, exploring the frustration and uncertainty those changes can bring. Told in first-person narratives, this collection features a diverse cast of boys and girls, each one living at a different point in Canada's vast landscape and history. With unforgettable protagonists -- such as Miriam, a Warsaw-ghetto survivor, now reunited with her family in Montreal; Wong Joe-on, a young Chinese immigrant who faces racism in a small Saskatchewan town; and Insy, an Ojibwe girl who makes her first trip to a "white" town in Northern Ontario -- young readers will be moved by the opportunities and difficulties that these characters face, as each one ponders what it means to be Canadian, and struggles to fit in. Hoping for Home includes stories by Jean Little, Kit Pearson, Brian Dowle, Paul Yee, Irene N. Watts, Ruby Slipperjack, Afua Cooper, Rukhsana Khan, Marie--Andrée Clermont, Lillian Boraks--Nemetz and Shelley Tanaka.