Trial by Winterby Anne PattonPublished by Coteau BooksReview by Michelle Shaw$10.95 ISBN 9781550509786 I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live in a sod house in Saskatchewan during a winter blizzard. Now, thanks to Anne Patton, I have an inkling. Trial by Winter is the third and final story in Anne Patton’s Barr Colony Adventure Series. It’s 1903 and the Bolton family have built a sod house on their land in the North-West Territories. Running desperately short of money Dorothy’s father decides to travel to Edmonton to work for the winter, leaving ten-year-old Dorothy, her sixteen-year-old sister, Lydia and their mother to face their first harsh prairie winter essentially alone. Patton has the ability to transport the reader to another place and time in vivid detail, geographically, socially and climatically. She has clearly done an immense amount of meticulous research, but the research is always atmospheric and enhances the plot rather than crowding it. She vividly describes the everyday practicalities that are needed to survive during the brutal winter such as bringing wood inside to thaw before cutting it and scooping snow from the drifts outside the front door during a blizzard to melt for water. Then there…

Through Flood & Fire by Anne Patton Published by Coteau Books Review by Michelle Shaw $9.95 ISBN 9781550506402 As a relative newcomer to Canada, my knowledge of the history of my home province is primarily gleaned from helping my daughters’ with their homework. So I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to lose myself in a “first-hand” account of Saskatchewan’s history, as told through the eyes of ten-year-old Dorothy, the protagonist of Through Flood & Fire by Anne Patton. Dorothy and her family leave England en route to the Barr Colony in Saskatchewan in 1903. That story is told in the first book in Anne Patton’s, Barr Colony adventure series, Full Speed to Canada. Through Flood & Fire picks up the family’s story in the little village of Saskatoon. Dorothy and her family are headed out across the prairies to establish a new settlement. After numerous adventures they eventually settle in the area surrounding the town of present-day Lloydminster, named after the man leading their community, The Reverend Mr Lloyd. I loved the fact that the book is loosely based on an actual story of a young girl called Dorothy, who was “plucked from her familiar urban life in…

Full Steam to Canada by Anne Patton Published by Coteau Books for Kids Review by Catherine Fuchs $8.95 ISBN 978-1-55050-457-6 Full Steam to Canada takes the reader along on a capricious journey from Victorian England to the wilderness of Canada in the early 1900’s. All of this is told through the eyes of 10 year old Dorothy Bolton. Young readers get to follow Dorothy and her new friends as she travels with her family across the Atlantic and across Canada to start a new life on the prairies. Anne Patton’s latest novel is based on a true story that has magical beginnings in the chance story telling of an elderly woman. More than a quarter century ago, Anne Patton taped an interview with the original ‘Dorothy’, and built on these memories a fictional cast of characters venturing to start a new life in the Barr Colonies of the Canadian Prairie in the year 1903. Many of Dorothy’s journeys and observations of her new life were further based on the archives and diaries of the original settlers from the Barr Colonies in Saskatchewan. The historical context in which this book is written will take the reader back in time. Young readers…

Dancing in My Bones by Wilfred Burton and Anne Patton Published by the Gabriel Dumont Institute Review by Arnold J. Isbister $12.95 ISBN 978-0-920915-89-9 I found this book insightful and entertaining. It is a good read for young people and adults as well. It takes you into a young boy’s life and shows how his culture plays such an important part in his upbringing. The language of the story is simple with the words written as the people would talk in such situations. I love the full page (21x28cm) colored illustrations with the story in English and below in Michif. These dimensions make the book more entertaining and engaging and make it feel good in the hands as you read, especially to kids who want to see the images whilst peeking over your shoulder. They are big, full of color and full of life, making the imagination ‘dance’. I greatly admire the imagery like the supper scene or the scene where Uncle Bunny is sitting and starting to play his violin as his foot taps the floor. These bring back fond memories that most can identify with. This is why I recommend this book for adults as well because most…