Back to Batoche
by Cheryl Chad
Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing
Review by Alison Slowski
$12.95 ISBN 978-1-927756-20-1

Back to Batoche is a funny, light-hearted story about three kids who travel back in time to Batoche on the eve of the Battle for Batoche, the famous battle between the Riel Resistance and the North West Field Force. This novel sees the great battle from the point of view of the three Dory children who are the main characters of this story, so while the subject matter is serious in nature, it would not fail to keep the young reader in question engaged and amused by the children’s travels and adventures.

“A century is only a spoke in the wheel of everlasting time.” – Louis Riel

The novel begins by introducing the Dory siblings, Max, Liam, and Kaeleigh, who go on a trip with their grandmother to see Batoche Historic National Park. Upon arrival at the majestic National Park, the three siblings go on a tour of the landmark church and other sites around Batoche, and meet a strange and mysterious Metis fiddler boy by the name of Isidore Pilon . While exploring the old church, the children find an intriguing pocket watch in one of the wings of the wooden angel statue in the church. Winding up the watch sends them on a magical journey they could have never imagined—into the past.
In the past, the three children meet Isidore’s great-great grandfather, also named Isidore Pilon, and he takes them on a journey not soon forgotten to meet Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont. But when the watch is coveted by an evil fellow time-traveller, a strange onlooker who notices the children’s presence, the children are in danger. Finally, with the help of some of Isidore’s friends and family, it is up to Max, Liam, and Kenleigh to convince Louis Riel about faith and how much he will need it on the eve of the battle of his life, so that they can keep the watch out of someone else’s prying hands and not alter the hands of time.

An accomplished author of children’s stories, as well as a prolific non-fiction writer, Chad was a federal public servant until 2009. Her latest outstanding release in Young Adult fiction that highlights the great and tragic history of the Saskatchewan Prairies, Cheryl Chad’s entertaining and engrossing novel Back to Batoche is not to be missed by any reader, young or old.

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