Description
Finalist for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People and the IODE Violet Downey Book Award, and an American Library Association Notable Children's Book and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book
It's 1941, and Canada is two years into World War II. Meanwhile, in rural Manitoba, fifteen-year-old Marie-Claire Cote begins a war of her own as she and her brother and sister, all stricken with tuberculosis, are taken by their anguished parents to "chase the cure" at nearby Pembina Hills Sanatorium.
While her roommate retains a dogged cheerfulness that is both heroic and irritating, Marie-Claire resists with all of her prideful strength while she fights her own illness and tries to seek privacy where there is none. Her father, overwhelmed by fear and guilt, never visits. And her young brother, Luc, who is losing his battle with TB in another wing of the infirmary, sends notes to her penned for him by his nineteen-year-old roommate, Jack Hawkings.
This is a story about surviving loss, and finding friendship, and love, in surprising places.
Author Bio
MARTHA BROOKS is an award-winning novelist, playwright and jazz singer whose books have been published in Spain, Italy, Japan, Denmark, England, Germany and Australia, as well as in Canada and the United States. She is a three-time winner of the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book of the Year, as well as the Ruth Schwartz Award, the Mr. Christie’s Book Award, the Governor General’s Award, and the Vicky Metcalf Award for her body of work. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta.
Prizes
- Kirkus Best Teen Books of 2011Commended 2011
- OLA Best BetsCommended 2010
- YALSA Best Fiction for Young AdultsCommended 2012
- Manitoba Young Readers Choice AwardsShort-listed 2011
- ALA Notable Chilren's Books ListCommended 2012
- Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young PeopleShort-listed 2011
- IODE Violet Downey Book AwardShort-listed 2010
- Manitoba Book Awards McNally Robinson Book for Young People AwardShort-listed 2011
- CCBC Best Books for Kids & Teens, Starred SelectionCommended 2011
Review Quotes
