Abstract
Novels from the Dear Canada series of historic fiction, published by Scholastic Canada, currently populate the shelves of school classrooms and libraries across Canada. This study explores two Dear Canada novels that chronicle significant moments in Atlantic Canadian history: Janet McNaughton’s novel (Flame and ashes: The great fire diary of Triffie Winsor. St. Johns, Newfoundland, 1892, Scholastic Canada, Toronto, 2014) which explores the Great Fire of Newfoundland in 1892, and Julie Lawson’s novel, No Safe Harbour (No safe harbour: the Halifax explosion diary of Charlotte Blackburn, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1917, Scholastic Canada, Toronto, 2006), which explores the Halifax Explosion of 1917. Kenneth Kidd (Child Lit 33: 120–149, 2005) notes that “subjects previously thought too upsetting for children are now deemed appropriate and even necessary” in children’s literature (p. 12); indeed, the themes of both Flame and Ashes and No Safe Harbour resonate with recent attempts to represent broader and more diverse ranges of experiences in children’s fiction. Like many other texts in the series, these texts explore economic hardship and psychological distress. Furthermore, they explore events through the eyes of subjects who have, historically, had very little agency: female children. Drawing on narrative theory and feminist standpoint theory (Fuller in Writing the everyday: women’s textual communities in Atlantic Canada, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 2004), this study examines the narrative techniques McNaughton and Lawson rely on to counterbalance difficult historical events with the appeal of young protagonists who offer subjective responses to the historical moment. This study considers both the ideological challenges and the possible advantages of circulating historical knowledge that is linked to girlhood and profoundly rooted in place. Ultimately, I argue that these young female narrators provide important inroads for interrogating what counts as history in historical narratives.
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Notes
Instead, the protagonists' names are featured and the last names of the authors may be found on the spine, as well as in the front matter.
The gifting of these scraps of time is corroborated by the texts' presentation: there are only hardcover editions of these texts, with solid, smooth covers protecting decaled, frayed diary pages. In a rather glowing review of these series, Nancy Huse (2005) notes that the texts, like Canada's national anthem, evoke a consortium of "admiration and yearning."
Diane Kerner (2016), Vice President of publishing at Scholastic Canada, notes that the Dear Canada series was inspired by the Dear America series and Canadian editors adopted the overall series look and objective, though each series holds its own separate trademark and series development is done independently by each editorial group (personal communication, Oct. 27, 2016.
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Katherine Bell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she teaches courses in Children’s Literature, Tween Literature and Young Adult literature. Her most recent research explores representations of young adulthood in Canadian coming-of-age novels and film. Her work has been published in several journals, including Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, English Studies in Canada, Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, Girlhood Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Changing English and The ALAN review.
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Bell, K. Behind the Blackout Curtains: Female Focalization of Atlantic Canada in the Dear Canada Series of Historical Fiction. Child Lit Educ 49, 161–179 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-017-9315-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-017-9315-9