Historical fiction

  • Railroad of Courage

    Creator

    Rubenstein, Dan

    Dyson, Nancy

    Abstract

    This young reader novel about the Underground Railroad begins when Rebecca, a twelve-year-old slave in South Carolina, hears that Grower Brown plans to sell her father to another grower. Unwilling to accept the idea of slavery any longer, she shocks her parents by declaring that she will run away, with or without them. Despite their fear, they agree to go with her on the Underground Railroad to Canada. They are led by the famous Harriet Tubman, aka Moses, the tiny but fiercely courageous black woman whom Rebecca comes to love.

    Publisher (Source)

    Vancouver

    Ronsdale Press

    Not specified
  • The Inverted Pyramid

    Creator

    Sinclair, Bertrand W.

    Abstract

    Bertrand W. Sinclair's The Inverted Pyramid, a best-seller when it was first published in 1924, appears now for the first time in a new edition. Writing in the period from 1908 onwards, Sinclair published over fifteen novels, some of which sold in the hundreds of thousands. In The Inverted Pyramid, which critics often cite as his most ambitious novel, he explores Canada's drift during WWI from a world of production to one based on finance, with all the attendant problems we are still enduring today.

    Publisher (Source)

    Vancouver

    Ronsdale Press

    Not specified
  • The Invention of the World

    Creator

    Hodgins, Jack

    Abstract

    Jack Hodgins begins The Invention of the World with a ferry worker waving you aboard a ship that will take you not only to Vancouver Island but into a world of magic. The far west coast of Canada has always been regarded as a “land’s end” where the eccentrics of the world come to plot out the last best utopia. Hodgins both invents a world and shows how we continually invent that world in all its multiplicity. Past and present intermingle while hilarious farce rubs up against epic tragedy.

    Publisher (Source)

    Vancouver

    Ronsdale Press

    Not specified
  • The Old Brown Suitcase

    Creator

    Boraks-Nemetz, Lillian

    Abstract

    The Old Brown Suitcase, an award winning book that has sold extraordinarily well both nationally and internationally, now appears in a new edition by Ronsdale Press. The novel narrates the absorbing story of a young girl who survived the Holocaust against all odds. At age fourteen, Slava comes to Canada with her parents and sister and a suitcase filled with memories of a lost childhood, memories that now haunt her new life. She cannot forget the hunger, stench and disease in the Warsaw Ghetto, nor the fear and humiliation of being incarcerated behind a high brick wall.

    Publisher (Source)

    Vancouver

    Ronsdale Press

    Not specified
  • The Nor'Wester

    Creator

    Starr, David

    Abstract

    This gripping novel for young readers begins in 1805, when fifteen-year-old Duncan Scott and his sister Libby lose their parents in a Glasgow cotton mill fire. Their tragedy is compounded when, through one reckless act of grief, the Scott children become fugitives as well as orphans, and must flee Scotland. Across the border in England, Duncan and Libby are betrayed by their travelling companion.

    Publisher (Source)

    Vancouver

    Ronsdale Press

    Not specified
  • Song of Batoche

    Creator

    Caron, Maia

    Abstract

    This historical novel reimagines the North-West resistance of 1885 through the Métis women of Batoche, and in particular the rebellious outsider, Josette Lavoie. When Riel arrives from Montana, he discovers that Josette is the granddaughter of Chief Big Bear, whom he needs as an ally, but Josette resists becoming his disciple when she learns that he considers the Métis a lost tribe of Israel and himself the prophet who will lead them to the Promised Land.

    Publisher (Source)

    Vancouver

    Ronsdale Press

    Not specified
  • Freedom Bound

    Creator

    Baxter, Jean Rae

    Abstract

    In this, the final instalment of Jean Rae Baxter's best-selling young adult trilogy, eighteen-year-old Charlotte sails from Canada to Charleston in the beleaguered Thirteen Colonies to join her new husband Nick. During these final months of the American Revolution, she must muster all her wit and courage when she has to rescue Nick from being tortured as a spy in an alligator-infested South Carolina swamp. She must also find ways to bring freedom to a pair of teenage runaway slaves she has befriended.

    Publisher (Source)

    Vancouver

    Ronsdale Press

    Not specified
  • Broken Trail

    Creator

    Baxter, Jean Rae

    Abstract

    Broken Trail is the story a thirteen-year-old white boy, the son of United Empire Loyalists, who has been captured and adopted by the Oneida people. Striving to find his vision oki that will guide him in his quest to become a warrior, Broken Trail disavows his white heritage — he considers himself Oneida. But everything changes when Broken Trail, alone in the woods on his vision quest, is mistakenly shot by a redcoat soldier. Broken Trail is taken to the soldier's camp and then sent south on a mission to deliver a message to Major Patrick Ferguson that could save many lives.

    Publisher (Source)

    Vancouver

    Ronsdale Press

    Not specified
  • Ghost of Heroes Past

    Creator

    Reid, Charles

    Abstract

    Thirteen-year-old Johnny Anders is something of a misfit, with no friends and a poor school record, but all this begins to change when he is awakened one night to find a soldier-ghost in his bedroom. Johnny is taken back to meet a series of unusual heroes in Canada's war history. These include Joan Bamford Fletcher, who commandeered Japanese soldiers to take hundreds of wounded civilians to safety through the jungles of Indonesia, and the much-decorated Raymond Collishaw, through whom Johnny learns that Canada played a role in the Russian Revolution.

    Publisher (Source)

    Vancouver

    Ronsdale Press

    Not specified
  • The Kingdon of No Worries

    Creator

    Roy, Philip

    Abstract

    The Kingdom of No Worries is the story of three young friends who create their own kingdom on a piece of land that emerges in the middle of the river that runs through their city. Inspired by their actions to create a democracy that is a model of social tolerance and global thinking, the surrounding community turns out in the thousands to participate in what becomes a radical cultural hub of the city. Over the course of one hot summer the boys grapple to learn what a democracy is and to oversee its demands.

    Publisher (Source)

    Vancouver

    Ronsdale Press

    Not specified