Here is a list of summertime reading that has been recommended by my family and friends. These books will interest genealogists who are researching their Canadian ancestry or who just want to read a good book. Bonne lecture!
The Juggler’s Children by Carolyn Abraham.Toronto, Ontario: Random House Canada, 2013. A journey into family, legend, and the genes that bind us. Armed with DNA kits, the author criss-crosses the globe, taking cells from relatives and strangers. This becomes a genetic journey that turns up far more than she bargained for — ugly truths and moral quandaries.
Jeanne Dugas of Acadia by Cassie Deveau Cohoon. Sydney, Nova Scotia: Cape Breton University Press, 2013. Descended from one of the three most prominent families in Acadia, Jeanne Dugas and her family lived for more than thirty years under the threat of capture and deportation by the British militia and attacks by pirates and privateers. She and her husband Pierre Bois were among the founding families of the Acadian village of Cheticamp in 1785.
Montreal: The Days that are No More by Edgar Andrew Collard. Toronto, Ontario: Doubleday, 1976. This is a compilation of articles Mr. Collard wrote for The Gazette about persons, places, and events in the city’s history, from les filles du roi to Benjamin Franklin and Hudson Bay Company’s Sir George Simpson. Reading these short stories is an easy way to enjoy the summer.
Into the Blue by Andrea Curtis. Toronto, Ontario: Random House of Canada, 2004. Every family has a story passed down through generations. For the author, that story is the wreck of the SS J.H. Jones. In 1906, the late-November swells of Georgian Bay in Ontario erupt into a blinding storm, sinking the Jones and claiming the lives of all on board. Left in the wake is Captain Jim Crawford’s one-year-old daughter Eleanor who faces a daunting future of poverty and isolation.
Bride of New France by Suzanne Desrochers. Toronto, Ontario: Penguin Canada, 2012. In 1669, Laure Beausejour and her best friend, Madeleine, are sent from Paris to New France as filles du roi, young women transported overseas to help populate the colony. This book is also available in French: La Fiancée de la Nouvelle-France. Montréal, Québec: Éditions Hurtubise, 2012.
A Great and Noble Scheme by John Mack Faragher. New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. This book is about what is arguably Canada’s most tragic story. In 1755, Britain embarked on a “great and noble scheme” to deport 18,000 French-speaking Acadians from Nova Scotia, killing thousands, separating innumerable families, and driving many into forests where they waged a desperate guerrilla resistance.
Laying the Children’s Ghosts to Rest by Sean Arthur Joyce. Regina, Saskatchewan: Hagios Press, 2014. Between 1869 and the early 1930s more than 100,000 children were rounded up from the streets of Britain to be used as labourers in Canadian homes. The author was shocked to learn in middle age that he was descended from one of them. This story is a blend of memoir and history about Western Canada’s home children.
Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens. Toronto, Ontario: Knopf Canada, 2003. A lonely 70-year-old woman takes in an abandoned girl in this heart-wrenching tale of love and loss set in the black communities of southwestern Ontario. This story takes place in Rusholme, Ontario, an all-black town born of the Underground Railroad. Its inhabitants farm land cleared by their ancestors who escaped slavery.
Polly of Bridgewater Farm: An Unknown Irish Story by Catharine Fleming McKenty. Toronto, Ontario: Cabbagetown Press, 2009. This semi-fictional account of Polly’s early days follows her from her birth just outside Dromore, Ireland in 1837; her survival of the Big Wind of January 6th 1839; the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s; and the May 14th 1847 crossing of the Atlantic; to the family’s arrival at Grosse-Île near Quebec. The Canadian portion of her journey takes her first to Montreal, and then to Toronto where she married a young tailor, John Verner.
I’ll Buy You an Ox by Betty Boudreau Vaughan. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Nimbus Publishing, 1997. This is the story of a spirited young girl Zoe LeBlanc from a poor family in a small Acadian village in southwestern Nova Scotia. It is a coming-of-age story about a life of struggle, routine, family commitments, and loneliness.
Available online
Through St. Dunstan’s to Light by James H. Rawlinson. Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1919. Private Rawlinson was a member of the 58th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who was blinded by shell fire in France during WWI. In his memoir, he writes about how he lost his sight and his experience in London’s St. Dunstan’s, a hostel for rehabilitating the visually disabled and where he met King George. Available free to read here.
Young readers — Ages 9 to 12
Bridget’s Black ’47 by Dorothy Perkyns. Toronto, Ontario: Dundurn Press, 2009. Bridget Quinlan is a spirited 13-year-old when the Irish potato famine of the 1840s shatters her life. With soldiers evicting the ill and unemployed, the Quinlans are forced to accept the offer of a passage to Canada.
More recommendations are available in O, Canada! Summer reading for genealogists: Part 1.
