A young Jewish girl recounts her experiences during a horrifying time in recent history. As Rose begins her diary, she is in her third home since coming to Winnipeg. Traumatized by her experiences in the Holocaust, she struggles to connect with others, and above all, to trust again. When her new guardian, Saul, tries to get Rose to deal with what happened to her during the war, she begins writing in her diary about how she survived the murder of the Jews in Poland by going into hiding. Memories of herself and her mother being taken in by those willing to risk sheltering Jews, moving from place to place, being constantly on the run to escape capture, begin to flood her diary pages. Recalling those harrowing days, includingwhen they stumbled on a resistance cell deep in the forest and lived underground in filthy conditions, begins to take its toll on Rose. As she delves deeper into her past, she is haunted by the most terrifying memory of all. Will she find the courage to bear witness to her mother's ultimate sacrifice?

Twelve original holiday stories from the top children's writers in the country! What an incredible gift book for Dear Canada fans! The twelve stories in this treasury are set around Christmas time and feature the young girls from a dozen previous Dear Canada books. Readers will be thrilled to reconnect with their favourites and get a glimpse of each character's life a year or so after the events in the actual diary are over. Anyone new to the Dear Canada series will be introduced to characters so compelling, they'll want to read more.

This dramatic story tells of 11-year-old Devorah's efforts to help her cousin and pen pal Sarah emigrate from Paris before the Nazis deport the Jews to internment camps. Devorah learns that 5,000 Jewish children in France have visas to leave the country, but the Canadian government will not let them in, leading Devorah to desperately lobby the government to change its policies. Turned Away illustrates the restrictions on the life of Jews in Paris via letters from Sarah who is living in German-occupied France. It also reveals Canada's dismal record on Jewish immigration during World War II and depicts the impact of the war in Canada. In Winnipeg, one intriguing response to the war was "If Day," when local people posed as Nazis and staged a mock invasion to illustrate what it would be like if the city was occupied. Also included are fascinating period documents and photographs, many from the Holocaust Memorial Museum. The historical consultants for Turned Away were Dr. Irving Abella, co-author of the ground-breaking book None is Too Many, and Terry Copp, author of the remarkable book No Price Too High.

An eleven-year-old orphan is reconnected to her mother's family, but her courage and strength are tested as she is put to work in a textile mill. Flora is a young, imaginative girl who has dreamt of having a family to call her own since her parents died from pleurisy when she was three. She dreams of family dinners. She dreams of friends. But mostly she dreams of leaving the orphanage. As the diary begins, Flora is still in an orphanage in Kingston, but her Auntie Janet has just married, and she and her husband James send for Flora to come and live with them in Almonte, Ontario. Once she arrives at her aunt's, Flora begins work in the Almonte Mill, even though she is underage -- typical for many children of the era. She works from dawn to dusk, near huge and noisy machines, and she sees the effects of the mill on workers who have lost an arm or their hearing. Still, this life is better than going back to the orphanage. But when Uncle James loses several fingers at the weaving machine and can't work anymore, money is really tight, and it's up to Flora and her aunt to find a way out of the predicament. Through all her trials, Flora writes down her feelings in a journal, one she addresses to "Dear Papa and Mama", because it makes her feel close to the parents she lost when she was young. Days of Toil and Tears includes historical background giving readers the social context of young mill workers, and a map of the textile industry of Canada, as well as fascinating photographs from this era.

Still reeling from the death of her mother, Harriet sets out on a dangerous journey -- disguised as a boy, since no "petticoats" are allowed on the trip -- determined to find her missing father in the gold fields of British Columbia's Cariboo. The journey itself is incredibly difficult, and Harriet still has to find her father before the winter snows close down the entire Williams Creek area. Will she be able to find him, or will her journey be for nothing?

The dark threat of polio becomes a reality for a young Prairie girl. In the summer of 1937, life on the Prairies is not easy. The Great Depression has brought great hardship, and young Noreen's family must scrimp to make ends meet. In a horrible twist of fate, Noreen, like hundreds of other young Canadians, contracts polio and is placed in an isolation ward, unable to move her legs. After a few weeks she gains partial recovery, but her family makes the painful decision to send her to a hospital far away for further treatment. To Stand On My Own is Noreen's diary account of her journey through recovery: her treatment; life in the ward; the other patients, some of them far worse off than her; adjustment to life in a wheelchair and on crutches; and ultimately, the emotional and physical hurdles she must face when she returns home. In this moving addition to the Dear Canada series, award-winning author Barbara Haworth-Attard recreates a desolate time in Canadian history, and one girl's brave fight against a deadly disease.

A touching "riches to rags" story set during the second-worst disaster in the history of Atlantic Canada. Eleven-year-old Triffie is the middle daughter of a well-to-do merchant. Triffie knows nothing about what it means to be poor — until the disastrous fire of 1892 burns down most of St. John's, Newfoundland, leaving Triffie's family and 15,000 others homeless. The fire claimed everything but their underwear, Mother's best china . . . and Triffie's journal. With no other options, Triffie's family moves into a filthy warehouse while they attempt to rebuild their lives from the ground up. The aftermath of the fire teaches Triffie a lot about what it means to survive. More importantly, she comes face to face with her own prejudices, and begins to develop a much greater appreciation for how the less fortunate live.