by Kit Pearson
Daddy went over after supper and I can hear the two men talking about war. What else?
Thursday, August 31, 1939
I thought of going over to say hello to Elsa but I felt too shy. I think she might feel shy too. Jonathan and Will got Dirk to come with them to the vacant lot. Jon said No Girls Allowed. I didn’t care. I hung around waiting for Elsa to come out. But I think they were still cleaning.
Jon says they are German but they are Canadian citizens. They came from Hamilton because her father lost his job. They aren’t a bit like Hitler.
Our father is getting ready to start doctoring soon. He has a friend who wants a partner.
Friday, September 1, 1939
The Germans swept through Poland today. I think that is what Daddy said. I didn’t ask what he meant exactly because I don’t want to have to sit and be told. But it is bad and it is getting more and more like that War is coming.
I took chalk out to draw on the sidewalk and Elsa came out with coloured chalk. We did not say much but we had fun all the same. We made pictures of houses with white chalk and put in the details, like flowers, with coloured.
Daddy was over talking to Mr. Gunther again. They came here from Germany when he was a child. He is afraid of what is going to happen in Europe.
Just before Daddy came home, I heard the two of them burst out laughing, though. It was wonderful. It seems ages since I heard Daddy laugh.
Saturday, September 2, 1939
Elsa and I played dolls all morning and went to the vacant lot with the boys after lunch. We played Tarzan. Elsa got to be Jane but I did not mind because I got to be the animals. Jon said we had to have Mowgli in it too. Of course, he’s from another book, but we gave in since he is such a great character.
Daddy would not come to supper with the rest of us because he is hunched up next to his big radio waiting for news from England. Mr. Gunther came over at nine o’clock to listen too.
Sunday, September 3, 1939
Daddy was right.
When I got up this morning, he was at the radio already even though it was early. Then he sent me up to get Mother. We all heard the prime minister in England declare war! Mother started to cry, although she was quiet about it. The aunts came. We thought of staying home from church but Mother said today we need to pray. So we went. We sang “Onward, Christian Soldiers” for the children’s hymn. Some people cried. It does not feel real.
After
I am supposed to be asleep.
I can write by the streetlight outside. Daddy was right about war coming, but I want to say that Mother was right too when she said it would be stupid. I feel very muddled up.
But one thing I know now. I will stand on guard for Canada if I can figure out how.
Monday, September 4, 1939
Labour Day
School starts tomorrow. Elsa and the boys and I spent most of the day in the vacant lot, which we have named The Greenwood. We did not talk about the War or school starting. When we came home, the four of us arranged to meet in the morning. If our mothers come to the school with us, we will go together so that, when they have to leave, we will still have each other.
Tuesday, September 5, 1939
I only have one page left, but that is fine because there are only two moments I want to remember.
The first moment is when we had finished singing “God Save the King.”
“Remain standing, class, while we sing ‘O Canada,’” Miss Murdoch said. Elsa and I are in the same class. We sit right across the aisle from each other. We had talked about this and we looked at each other and smiled when we came to “our home and native land.” Canada is not my native land. I was born in Formosa. Elsa’s parents are Canadian citizens but she was born in New York while they were visiting her aunt and uncle. We sang the words anyway. We are different enough. But I was glad she was there.
The rest of the day was long. We came home for lunch at noon but we had to go back.
Then, when the afternoon ended and we came down our road, Will was waiting on the front steps. When he saw me coming, he jumped up and ran to the door yelling, “Hattie’s home! Hattie’s home!”
And I was.
About the Authors
LILLIAN BORAKS-NEMETZ is a Warsaw ghetto survivor who spent some of the war years hiding in Polish villages under an assumed name. She is the author of several Holocaust-related novels: The Old Brown Suitcase (winner of the Sheila A. Egoff Award), Ghost Children, The Sunflower Diary and The Lenski File. She is co-editor of an anthology of writing about the Holocaust: Tapestry of Hope: Holocaust Writing for Young People. Lillian has written an adult novel featuring the character in The Old Brown Suitcase, fourteen-year-old Slava Lenski, about how a grown woman attempts to cope with wounds suffered from an unresolved childhood trauma.
MARIE-ANDRÉE CLERMONT is a Quebec writer and translator. After writing suspense and adventure stories, she devised the Faubourg St-Rock series of novels for teens, a daring concept in which the day-to-day problems of adolescents are addressed openly. Her own works in Faubourg St-Rock include L’engrenage, La marque rouge and La gitane. Parts of her story in Hoping for Home — Bernard’s “hearing the call,” Laura’s willingness to give her life to save her mother’s, and the mine disaster that killed seven men — are inspired by actual events she heard about while growing up.
DR. AFUA COOPER is a scholar and poet, and the author of My Name Is Phillis Wheatley and My Name Is Henry Bibb, as well as the Governor-General’s Award nominee The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal. Afua’s doctoral studies focused on Black communities in Ontario in the nineteenth century, particularly on anti-slavery crusader Henry Bibb. She is also the author of several books of poetry, most recently Copper Woman and Other Poems.
BRIAN DOYLE is the award-winning author of dozens of YA novels, among them Boy O’Boy; Pure Spring; Angel Square; Hey, Dad!; Uncle Ronald; Up to Low; You Can Pick Me Up at Peggy’s Cove and the Spud Sweetgrass novels. Many of his stories are set in and around the Ottawa Valley in the decades after World War II, a time when young people were wondering if the atomic bomb was going to end their world before they could grow up. Brian, raised with tall tales spun around the kitchen table, writes with an ear for diction and rhythm, and champions stories that unfold for the reader in subtle ways.
RUKHSANA KHAN has written novels such as Wanting Mor, based on the story of a girl in Afghanistan, and Dahling, If You Luv Me, Would You Please, Please Smile, about a teenage Muslim girl managing to find a way to stand up for her own traditions. Her picture books include King of the Skies and The Roses in My Carpets. Rukhsana’s collection of eight stories, Muslim Child, depicts Muslims living in different parts of the world. Her latest picture book, Big Red Lollipop, describes the difficulties of fitting in to a new culture. It was recently named by the New York Public Library as one of the 100 Great Children’s Books in 100 Years. Rukhsana grew up in a small southern Ontario town where she and her family were the only Pakistani Muslims.
JEAN LITTLE is a member of the Order of Canada, and the author of fifty novels and picture books, among them Hand in Hand, All Fall Down, Orphan at My Door, Brothers Far from Home, If I Die Before I Wake, Exiles from the War, Dancing Through the Snow, From Anna, Mama’s Going to Buy You a Mockingbird, Pippin the Christmas Pig, Wishes and On a Snowy Night. Jean is the daughter of medical missionaries. Her story for this anthology is based on her own arrival in Canada from Formosa (now known as Taiwan), as a “Canadian” girl who knew little of life in Canada, just before World War II broke out.
KIT PEARSON is the award-winning author of many children’s novels, among them Whispers of War, The Daring Game, A Handful of Time, Awake and Dreaming and A Perfect Gentle Knight. Her Guests of War Trilogy (The Sky Is Falling, Looking at the Moon, The Lights Go On Again) about children from England who spend the war years in Canada, has become a Canadian classic. Kit’s mother and aunt attended The Bishop Strachan School; Kit was able to u
se some of her aunt’s letters from this era while researching her story. Her newest novels are The Whole Truth, And Nothing But the Truth and A Day of Signs and Wonders.
RUBY SLIPPERJACK is a professor and Chair of the Department of Indigenous Learning at Lakehead University, and the author of half a dozen novels, among them These Are My Words, Honour the Sun, Silent Words, Little Voice and Dog Tracks. Ruby grew up on her father’s trapline on Whitewater Lake, until she was required to move away from home to attend a residential school. Apart from teaching and writing, she tries to spend as much time as she can “in the bush,” close to the traditional way of life of her family. These traditions provide much of the fabric of her stories.
SHELLEY TANAKA’s award-winning non-fiction titles include On Board the Titanic, Attack on Pearl Harbor and Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator. Her books have won the Silver Birch Award, the Science in Society Children’s Book Award, the Information Book Award and the Orbis Pictus Award. She is also a highly respected editor who has worked with Canada’s finest children’s writers, including Martha Brooks, Brian Doyle, Deborah Ellis, Sarah Ellis, Tim Wynne-Jones, Rukhsana Khan, Jean Little and Paul Yee. Shelley teaches in the MFA program at Vermont College. Her mother’s family was interned in Kaslo during World War II.
IRENE N. WATTS is the award-winning author of a trilogy about the Kindertransport program (Good-bye Marianne, Remember Me and Finding Sophie), as well as two books about Home Children (Flower and When the Bough Breaks). Her novel No Moon features a young nanny aboard the Titanic. Irene co-edited the anthology Tapestry of Hope: Holocaust Writing for Young People. She herself escaped from Europe just prior to World War II as one of the ten thousand children rescued via the Kindertransport program, which helped get Jewish children out of Europe before the onset of the war.
PAUL YEE has written many award-winning picture books and novels, contemporary and historical, about the Chinese experience in Canada, most notably Ghost Train, Roses Sing on New Snow, Tales from Gold Mountain, The Bone Collector’s Son and The Curses of Third Uncle. One of his non-fiction books is Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver. Another is Chinese Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook. Paul is the author of Blood and Iron, the story of a young Chinese boy helping build the Canadian Pacific Railway, in the I Am Canada series. His play about British Columbia’s Chinese coal miners, Jade in the Coal, premiered in Vancouver in 2010. Paul was born in Saskatchewan, and was raised in Vancouver’s Chinatown by his aunt.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, the characters are fictional people, created by the authors, and their diaries or letters are works of fiction.
www.scholastic.ca
Introduction copyright © 2011 by Scholastic Canada Ltd. All rights reserved.
The stories in this book are the copyrighted property of their respective authors.
“Marooned in Canada” copyright © 2011 by Kit Pearson.
“Ghost Town” copyright © 2011 by Shelley Tanaka.
“To Get Away from All That” copyright © 2011 by Rukhsana Khan.
“The Flower of the Flock” copyright © 2011 by Irene N. Watts.
“The Charleston at the Trapline” copyright © 2011 by Ruby Slipperjack.
“Prairie Showdown” copyright © 2011 by Paul Yee.
“In the Silence of My Heart” copyright © 2011 by Lillian Boraks-Nemetz.
“Entrance Certificate” copyright © 2011 by Brian Doyle.
“To Learn … Even a Little” copyright © 2011 by Afua Cooper.
“Out of the Ashes” copyright © 2011 by Marie-Andrée Clermont.
“Hattie’s Home” copyright © 2011 by Jean Little.
Cover and interior illustrations by Greg Ruhl.
Illustration copyright © 2011 by Scholastic Canada Ltd. All rights reserved.
Published by Scholastic Canada Ltd.
SCHOLASTIC and DEAR CANADA and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
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ISBN: 978-1-4431-2812-4
First e-book edition: January 2017
Other Books in the Dear Canada Series
All Fall Down, The Landslide Diary of Abby Roberts by Jean Little
Alone in an Untamed Land, The Filles du Roi Diary of Hélène St. Onge by Maxine Trottier
Banished from Our Home, The Acadian Diary of Angélique Richard by Sharon Stewart
Blood Upon Our Land, The North West Resistance Diary of Josephine Bouvier by Maxine Trottier
Brothers Far from Home, The World War I Diary of Eliza Bates by Jean Little
A Christmas to Remember, Tales of Comfort and Joy
A Country of Our Own, The Confederation Diary of Rosie Dunn by Karleen Bradford
Days of Toil and Tears, The Child Labour Diary of Flora Rutherford by Sarah Ellis
The Death of My Country, The Plains of Abraham Diary of Geneviève Aubuchon by Maxine Trottier
A Desperate Road to Freedom, The Underground Railroad Diary of Julia May Jackson by Karleen Bradford
Exiles from the War, The War Guests Diary of Charlotte Mary Twiss by Jean Little
Flame and Ashes, The Great Fire Diary of Triffie Winsor by Janet McNaughton
Footsteps in the Snow, The Red River Diary of Isobel Scott by Carol Matas
If I Die Before I Wake, The Flu Epidemic Diary of Fiona Macgregor by Jean Little
No Safe Harbour, The Halifax Explosion Diary of Charlotte Blackburn by Julie Lawson
Not a Nickel to Spare, The Great Depression Diary of Sally Cohen by Perry Nodelman
An Ocean Apart, The Gold Mountain Diary of Chin Mei-ling by Gillian Chan
Orphan at My Door, The Home Child Diary of Victoria Cope by Jean Little
Pieces of the Past, The Holocaust Diary of Rose Rabinowitz by Carol Matas
A Prairie as Wide as the Sea, The Immigrant Diary of Ivy Weatherall by Sarah Ellis
Prisoners in the Promised Land, The Ukrainian Internment Diary of Anya Soloniuk by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
A Rebel’s Daughter, The 1837 Rebellion Diary of Arabella Stevenson by Janet Lunn
A Ribbon of Shining Steel, The Railway Diary of Kate Cameron by Julie Lawson
A Sea of Sorrows, The Typhus Epidemic Diary of Johanna Leary by Norah McClintock
A Season for Miracles, Twelve Tales of Christmas
That Fatal Night, The Titanic Diary of Dorothy Wilton by Sarah Ellis
These Are My Words, The Residential School Diary of Violet Pesheens by Ruby Slipperjack
A Time for Giving, Ten Tales of Christmas
Torn Apart, The Internment Diary of Mary Kobayashi by Susan Aihoshi
To Stand On My Own, The Polio Epidemic Diary of Noreen Robertson by Barbara Haworth-Attard
A Trail of Broken Dreams, The Gold Rush Diary of Harriet Palmer by Barbara Haworth-Attard
Turned Away, The World War II Diary of Devorah Bernstein by Carol Matas
Where the River Takes Me, The Hudson’s Bay Company Diary of Jenna Sinclair by Julie Lawson
Whispers of War, The War of 1812 Diary of Susannah Merritt by Kit Pearson
Winter of Peril, The Newfoundland Diary of Sophie Loveridge by Jan Andrews
With Nothing But Our Courage, The Loyalist Diary of Mary MacDonald by Karleen Bradford
Go to www.scholastic.ca/dearcanada for information on the Dear Canada series — see
inside the books, read an excerpt or a review, post a review, and more.