A Sea of Sorrows: The Typhus Epidemic Diary of Johanna Leary, Ireland to Canada East, 1847

by Norah McClintock
Scholastic Canada
978-1-4431-0710-5
175 pp.
Ages 9-12
September 2012

Norah McClintock, three-time Arthur Ellis award-winning author for Best Juvenile Crime Book, surprising treats readers with this first foray into historical fiction.  However, this should not be surprising as Norah McClintock graduated with a degree in history from McGill University and shows great skill in bringing the past in Dear Canada's newest title, A Sea of Sorrows, to reside comfortably amongst her more contemporary award-winning volumes.

A Sea of Sorrow follows the story of thirteen-year-old Johanna Leary and her family from the blight-ravaged potato fields of Ireland to Canada in 1847.  Sorrows will plague the Learys, Ma, Da, fourteen-year-old Michael, Johanna and baby Patrick, each step and nautical mile of their journey from the hunger and poverty of their homeland to the farm of Da's brother, Liam, in the New World.  From their long walk to Dublin to catch a steamer for Liverpool and then boarding the sailing ship for Canada, the journey is arduous, sorrowful and forlorn.

Although never recognized at the time, the ships carrying the Learys and other families became known as coffin ships for the rabid spread of cholera and typhus that claimed the lives of young and old alike.  By the time the ship comes into the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, Johanna's family has lost little Patrick, and Connor Keenan, a young man who'd disguised himself as a girl to evade arrest for threatening and robbing some landlords, has lost his father, sister Colleen, and brother Kevin.  But arriving in Canada does not lead to landing and disembarking in Canada, as the countless line of ships anchored in the harbour indicate.  Those who are deemed ill, including Ma and Mrs. Keenan, are sent to the hospital on Grosse Isle.  The others must remain on the ship in quarantine to contain the spread of the disease.  Not surprising that during their days in quarantine, without fresh food or water, and waiting for medical inspection, even more people fall ill.

Following ten days in quarantine, only Da, Michael and Johanna with Connor and his little brother Daniel, are sent by steamer to Montreal. Again, the sorrows of separation and loss overtake the joys of officially arriving in Canada, as Da, who is ill, is taken away to the immigrant sheds, and Johanna and Daniel are taken with all the girls and youngest boys to an orphanage to be cared for by nuns.

And so, for the Learys, their new life in Canada alongside Uncle Liam has dissolved with each death and separation, just as it did for so many who travelled from Ireland at that time.  The mass exodus contributed to the horrific conditions on board the ships, which in turn led to illness and death.  Unfairly, the Irish immigrants were seen as bringing disease with them and became a spectacle and deemed worthy of prejudice and discrimination from the Canadians.  Even their starvation was twisted to be indicative of laziness by some.

A Sea of Sorrows is not a happy story, although Norah McClintock's epilogue offers some tidbits of happiness for some characters. But, it is a dramatic glimpse into the ghastly situations many Irish immigrants experienced circa 1847, leaving one horrific situation of poverty, starvation and discrimination for another that offered a glimmer of hope but within similar circumstances.  And Norah McClintock never sugar-coats Johanna's accounts, just as the girl would not have been able to do so; there was no sweetness to spare for her tale.  As rotten as the potatoes they fled, many of the Learys' lives festered along with numerous of their countrymen, with only the occasional murphy or Leary able to survive, albeit scarred.

A powerful telling of a historic tragedy. 

That Fatal Night: The Titanic Diary of Dorothy Wilton, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1912

by Sarah Ellis
Scholastic Canada
978-0-545-98073-9
170 pp.
Ages 8-13
2011

"The Titanic lives on because it is the best of stories.  It has exotic luxury, arrogance, greed, mystery, heroism, self-sacrifice, romance, suspense, vibrant characters, the implacable forces of nature, the power and ingenuity of huge machines and, at its heart, a little empty space, a space just big enough for us." (Sarah Ellis, Historical Note, pg. 147-148)

Sarah Ellis' assessment of the intrigue surrounding the Titanic is absolutely correct, except for Dorothy Wilton, who (fictionally) had a space on the Titanic and wishes she hadn't.  In fact, she'd rather not talk about it at all.  So starts That Fatal Night, just weeks after the disaster, with twelve-year-old Dorothy Wilton having been sent home from her Halifax school for injuring a classmate, Irene Rudge. Dorothy had slapped Irene, but Irene probably sustained greater injuries when she fell back and hit her head.  Now the principal has sent Dorothy home for the remainder of the school year.  Miss Caughey, Dorothy's classroom teacher, gives her a blank notebook in which to write about what happened that spring, and visits Dorothy regularly to check her progress.

Dorothy is determined not to even think about what happened on the ship but does recollect her visit with her grandparents in England, from which she had been returning.  Her visit with her grandparents and Mrs. Hawkins, the housekeeper, and Mrs. Hawkins' children, Owen and Millie, had been a magical time for Dorothy.  Grandfather conducted life lessons using newspaper stories, while Grandmother, an early feminist, introduced Dorothy to their extraordinary friends, including Mrs. Bland, who under her nom de plume had written the popular children's book, The Railway Children.  Dorothy role-played with Millie and Owen, regularly putting on performances.  After such a grand time, returning to Canada with the finicky Miss Pugh, an employee of her father's bank who had gone to visit her aging father, was tedious.

While writing about her visit with her grandparents and thinking about her dreams and such, Dorothy starts to allow snippets of reminiscences: her room at home and the ship's cabin; her frightening dream of melting faces and her visit to Madame Tussaud's wax museum; the freedom and joy of her visit versus the perennial admonitions of Miss Pugh of all things inappropriate, unsuitable, outrageous and vulgar.  And we learn that Dorothy had never wanted Miss Pugh to die.  In fact, Dorothy blames herself for her chaperone's death.

When Dorothy pieces her recollections together, she recognizes, with hindsight, her confusion about her actions and her feelings ("But I have never been so lonely as I was in that lifeboat"; pg.  115), finally acknowledging the fact that there just had not been enough lifeboats for everyone and that many people drowned. Ultimately, Dorothy is able to stop chastizing herself ("I should have been more grateful but being grateful takes heart"; pg. 120) but it isn't until an unexpected visitor speaks with her that Dorothy is set free from her guilt and self-recriminations.

While Sarah Ellis, Governor General Award-winning author of Pick-Up Sticks (Groundwood, 1991) shares extraordinary notes and photographs about the Titanic and its installation in our history and recognizes all the drama that is associated with the great ship's sinking, she puts forth a florid alternative narrative here, one in which a survivor looks within herself in regards to the tragedy.   Dorothy sees her actions as short-comings and inappropriate, not wishing to share these.  Surprisingly, her sorrow is misdirected.  By allowing herself to make mistakes (illustrated when she is finally able to leave a smudge mark in her notebook, rather than tear the page out and rewrite it) and see that there can still be a happy ending (just as in Edward Lear's nonsense poem, The Jumblies, which she memorizes), Dorothy has developed into a thoughtful and insightful young lady with the promise of surviving much more than just a maritime disaster.

• • • • •

The Jumblies and Other Nonsense Verses by Edward Lear can be read online or downloaded from Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org

Torn Apart: The Internment Diary of Mary Kobayashi, Vancouver, British Columbia, 1941

by Susan Aihoshi

Scholastic Canada

978-0-439-94660-5

209 pp.

Ages 8-13

2012

In Torn Apart: The Internment Diary of Mary Kobayashi, Mary turns twelve and looks forward to the simple pleasures of playing tennis with her friends, Sachiko, Maggie and Ellen; going to Girl Guides and Guide camp; attending baseball games with her family; and earning some money for a new bike by berry-picking in Surrey.  Although there is a war going on overseas, her life is filled with the simple joys of childhood and the caring of her large family: Mama and Papa; Geechan (her grandfather); older brothers Tad and Mike; older sisters Kay and Emma; and annoying little brother, Harry.  But soon, small changes impose on her reality.

At school, where they now do "war work" (e.g., sewing, knitting, map-reading, first aid), Mary endures occasional racial slurs, while the older members of her family acquiesce to carrying their registration cards with them.  The veiled prejudice aimed at Japanese-Canadians becomes more public after the December 7 bombing of the American military base at Pearl Harbor and Canada's declaration of war on Japan the following day.  Regardless of their citizenship, beliefs, desire to join Canada's military, or reputations, the Japanese-Canadians watch as their Japanese-language newspapers are shut down, their fishing boats seized by the navy, and secure jobs lost. While the older members of her family experience firsthand the discrimination of Canada's government and society, Mary notes what is happening but continues to enjoy a life rich in friendships and family.

However, the consequences of Japan's activities overseas, including seizing Hong Kong and later Singapore, bring a new round of governmental actions aimed at fraying the freedoms of Canada's Japanese, like requiring them to surrender their cars, radios and cameras; follow a dawn-to-dusk curfew; move to "relocation centres"; and concede to being rounded like Mary's Geechan and sent to work camps in the Rockies and elsewhere.  With Geechan's leaving, the fabric of Mary's family begins to rip, and slowly they become separated: Mike gets orders to work on a road crew; Tad volunteers for work in northern Ontario; the RCMP take Papa; and Emma, Kay and Mary are sent to the ghost town of New Denver, while Mama remains in Vancouver with a hospitalized Harry. 

While reading this newest addition to Scholastic Canada's Dear Canada series, I agonized over the cumulative losses endured by Mary and her family.  But, after finishing my reading, I know that Susan Aihoshi was correct in emphasizing the Torn Apart nature of the Japanese-Canadian story.  Like a strong furoshiki, able to heft great loads, the Kobayashi's are strong because of their connections, as a family, to each other and to their communities, Japanese and Canadian.  But, the challenges of fear and ignorance strive to weaken the fabric, ripping it unceremoniously with Geechan's departure, and more so with each separation.

Susan Aihoshi appropriately uses Mary's voice to express the experience of the Japanese-Canadians during the latter half of World War II.  Mary is neither as naive and oblivious as young Harry, who wants to play war and the board game "Yellow Peril", nor succumbing to the life-altering demands of an ignorant government.  But, she witnesses the perplexing about-turn of an ill-informed society and she tries to keep her reality intact.  Luckily, small kindnesses and thoughtful support slowly weave the frayed threads of that furoshiki together again.  Though never the same as the original, the mending offers some hope for re-creating the family tapestry, perhaps with new threads of different hues and composition.


N.B. Susan Aihoshi includes a wealth of historical notes and graphics to enhance and reference Mary's fictional tale.

Happy 10th Birthday to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scholastic's DEAR CANADA series

By the end of 2011, twenty-nine diaries based on events in Canada's history will have been written by eleven authors for Scholastic Canada's series Dear Canada.   

From the tactile pleasure of their hardcovers, to the delicacy of the trademark ribbon bookmark, to the rough, deckle edges of the ivory pages and the intimacy of the story telling from the diarist's perspective, our young readers are carried into a Canada of a different time.

Congratulations, Scholastic Canada, for bringing Canadian history to life for many young readers. 

All books are listed at Scholastic Canada's website, Scholastic Canada: Dear Canada series book list
including Dear Canada's newest, That Fatal Night: The Titanic Diary of Dorothy Wilton by Sarah Ellis (Scholastic Canada, 2011)