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5.
 
Historical Fiction
 
There is no self-conscious tradition in Canadian fiction of mythologizing major historical 
characters and events as there is in American children's literature. Thus, in historical fiction, 
Canadian authors cannot relate their narratives with the confidence that their young readers will 
have a general familiarity with major eras or events. Certain periods of Canadian history (eg, the 
War of 1812 and the North-West Rebellion) seem to be favourites in novels. The former has been 
treated in Barbara and Heather Bramwell's 
Adventure at the Mill
(1963) and John F. 
Hayes's 
Treason at York
(1949); the latter in W.T. Cutt's 
On the Trail of Long Tom
(1970) and Jan 
Truss's 
A Very Small Rebellion
(1977). The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are portrayed in J.W. 
Chalmers's 
Horseman in Scarlet
(1961); the 
LOYALISTS
' escape to Canada in Mary Alice and 
John Downie's 
Honor Bound
(1971), and the Cariboo Gold Rush in Christie Harris's 
Cariboo 
Trail
(1957). In
Underground to Canada
(1977), Barbara 
SMUCKER
 describes the dangerous 
journey to Ontario of 3 slaves who have escaped from a Southern plantation. Many contemporary 
authors have created historical novels about the first half of this century. Barbara Smucker's
Days of 
Terror
(1979) is an account of the struggles of Mennonites who have fled their Ukrainian village 
and come to Canada during WWI. Jean Little, in 
Listen for the Singing
(1977), details the tensions 
of a German-Canadian family during WWII. Myra Paperny's family story
The Wooden 
People
(1976) is set in Alberta in the 1920s, and Brian Doyle's 
Up to Low
(1982) and 
Angel 
Square
(1986) are based on the author's 1940s eastern Ontario boyhood. 
Set in rural Alberta during the Depression, Cora Taylor's 
Summer of the Mad Monk
(1994) 
presents a young teenager's encounter with a Russian blacksmith he believes to be the famous 
Czarist leader Rasputin. Paul Yee, in 
Curses of the Third Uncle
(1986), deals with the impact the 
Chinese revolution of 1909 has on a Chinese Canadian girl. 
Hockey Bat Harris
(1985), by Geoffrey 
Bilson, and Kit Pearson's
The Sky is Falling
(1989), 
Looking at the Moon
(1991) and 
The Lights Go 
On Again
(1993) recount the struggles of British children evacuated to Canada during WWII. 

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164 
Joy 
KOGAWA's
Naomi's Road
(1986) is based on the author's own experience of being interned as 
a Japanese-Canadian during WWII. 
Some of the most distinguished historical fiction for children is found in books dealing with 
the native peoples, both before and after European contact. Often these stories centre on the rites of 
passage, as in 
HAIG-BROWN's
The Whale People
(1962), in which a Nootka youth is thrust into a 
position of authority after the death of his father. In Edith Sharp's 
Nkwala
(1958), a Salish boy 
searches for a vision to guide him into adulthood. Cliff Faulknor's trilogy, 
The White 
Calf
(1965), 
The White Peril
(1966) and 
The Smoke Horse
(1968), is set on the prairies just before 
and during the arrival of Europeans. Stories dealing with contacts between native and European 
cultures include J.F. Hayes's 
Buckskin Colonist
(1947), Doris 
ANDERSON's
Blood Brothers
(1967) 
and Harris's 
Forbidden Frontier
(1968). Jan Hudson's
Sweetgrass
(1984) combines historical 
research and a feminist viewpoint in detailing the life of a young Blackfoot woman in the early 19th 
century. Kevin Major's 
Blood Red Ochre
(1989) draws parallels between the life of a contemporary 
Newfoundland native girl and her Beothuk ancestors. 
Writers of biography and historical nonfiction have always had to avoid the pitfalls of 
accurate but dry scholarship, and exciting but inaccurate fictionalization. Among those biographies 
that have avoided the dangers are Haig-Brown's 
Captain of the Discovery: The Story of Captain 
George Vancouver
(1956), Kay Hill's 
And Tomorrow the Stars: The Story of John Cabot
(1968) and 
Roy
DANIELLS's
Alexander Mackenzie and the North West
(1969). Accurate and lively histories for 
young readers include Pierre
BERTON's
The Golden Trail
(1954), T.M. Longstreth's 
The Scarlet 
Force
(1953) and William Toye's 
The St. Lawrence
(1959), and Janet Lunn and Christopher 
Moore's 
The Story of Canada
(1992). Although native peoples have been sensitively treated in 
fiction and in adaptations of folklore, they have not, with the exception of Harris's
Raven's 
Cry
(1966), been the subject of major biographies or histories for children.