by Jean Little
Cool in pans; remove from pan; then add filling between layers and frost.
Caramel/Butterscotch Filling and Frosting
2½ Tbsp. Watkins Butterscotch Dessert Mix
½ Cup Brown Sugar
1 Cup Milk
2 Egg Yolks
2 Tbsp. Butter or Margarine
½ Teas. Watkins Caramel Extract
1¾ to 2 Cups Sifted Powdered Sugar
Melt butter in small saucepan; add brown sugar and cook until sugar dissolves (may look curdled).
Stir in milk and extract.
Cool.
Beat in enough powdered sugar to achieve spreading consistency.
14.
The Dominion of Canada in 1897.
15.
Dotted lines show train routes from places where Home Children disembarked from the ships that had carried them from England to Canada. Near Belleville, girls took a train heading to Hazelbrae in Peterborough, while boys proceeded to the Barnardo Home on Farley Street in Toronto. Many Home Boys travelled farther west to work on farms on the prairies.
Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:
Cover portrait: W. J. Topley/National Archives of Canada, detail, colourized PA 151708.
Cover background: National Archives of Canada, colourized PA 41785.
1: Courtesy of Woodland Publishing and Gail Corbett, from Barnardo Children in Canada.
2: National Archives of Canada C-019313.
3: National Archives of Canada C-028727.
4: Courtesy of Alfred Crane and Kitchener Record.
5: Barnardo’s Photographic Archive.
6, 7 and 8: City Archives/Peterborough Centennial Museum and Archives.
9: Courtesy of author.
10: National Archives of Canada 103121.
11: “Monday’s Child”, Anonymous.
12: Courtesy of Ailsa Little.
13: © 1999 WATKINS: HEALTHIER LIVING SINCE 1868
14 and 15: Maps by Paul Heersink/Paperglyphs. Map data © 2000 Government of Canada with permission from Natural Resources Canada.
Thanks to Barbara Hehner for her careful checking of the manuscript, and to Dr. Joy Parr, author of Labouring Children, for her historical expertise.
For Mary Ronzio,
an inspired researcher and cherished friend
About the Author
Jean Little began writing as a child and, encouraged by her family, has continued ever since. Victoria’s poem was one that Jean created when she was only twelve. To date she has written over forty novels and ten picture books, three books of short stories and poetry, and two autobiographies — Stars Come Out Within and Little by Little. Her other books in the Dear Canada series are CLA Honour Book Brothers Far from Home, If I Die Before I Wake and Geoffrey Bilson Award Finalist Exiles from the War. She has also written novels such as Mama’s Going to Buy You a Mockingbird, Listen for the Singing, Mine for Keeps, From Anna and Dancing Through the Snow. Such books have won her many prestigious awards, among them the CLA Book of the Year Award; the Ruth Schwartz Award; the Canada Council Children’s Literature Prize; the Violet Downey Award; the Little, Brown Canadian Children’s Book Award and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book Award. She received the Vicky Metcalf Award in 1974 for her Body of Work, and is a member of the Order of Canada. Orphan at My Door won the CLA Book of the Year Award.
Jean was inspired to write her first novel, Mine for Keeps, while teaching at the Guelph Crippled Children’s Centre. Sally, the story’s heroine, is a real character in every way. How was Jean able to make her so? Perhaps because she can imagine what life is like for a girl with a physical challenge: Whenever you see Jean Little you’ll always see a dog, too, because Jean is blind. Her current guide dog, Honey, was preceded by Jean’s earlier guide dogs, Pippa, Ritz and Zephyr.
How does Jean write her books? She types them into a computer program which then “reads” aloud what she has written. She reads all the time (usually books on CD), even when she’s writing one of her own books. Jean says that when she can’t read, she can’t write.
Readers often remark how true, how real, the people are in Jean Little’s books. Characters come to Jean, walk into her mind, and demand to be written about. “My characters are real enough,” she says, “that if I get halfway through writing a book and decide I don’t want to finish it, what makes me finish it is the characters. Because if I don’t finish it, it’s like killing them. Their only chance to live is if I finish the book.”
Jean’s gift is the way she has of listening to those characters, following where they lead, guided by an uncanny knack for creating a story with conflict and drama, and peopled by real characters. She once said, “Your only responsibility as a writer is to be true to the story that has chosen you as its writer.”
Jean grew up in Guelph, in the house she has used as the setting for this story. She makes regular visits to schools to meet with fans of her many stories. She tells them that “the best place for your nose is inside a book, so keep reading a Little.”
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Victoria Josephine Cope is a fictional character, created by the author, and her diary and its epilogue are works of fiction.
Copyright © 2001 by Jean Little.
Published by Scholastic Canada Ltd.
SCHOLASTIC and DEAR CANADA and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher, Scholastic Canada Ltd., 604 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1E1, Canada. In the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence must be obtained from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5 (1-800-893-5777).
eISBN: 978-1-4431-1314-4
First digital edition, September 2011
Books in the Dear Canada Series
Alone in an Untamed Land, The Filles du Roi Diary of Hélène St. Onge by Maxine Trottier
Banished from Our Home, The Acadian Diary of Angélique Richard by Sharon Stewart
Blood Upon Our Land, The North West Resistance Diary of Josephine Bouvier by Maxine Trottier
Brothers Far from Home, The World War I Diary of Eliza Bates by Jean Little
A Christmas to Remember, Tales of Comfort and Joy
Days of Toil and Tears, The Child Labour Diary of Flora Rutherford by Sarah Ellis
The Death of My Country, The Plains of Abraham Diary of Geneviève Aubuchon by Maxine Trottier
A Desperate Road to Freedom, The Underground Railroad Diary of Julia May Jackson by Karleen Bradford
Exiles from the War, The War Guests Diary of Charlotte Mary Twiss by Jean Little
Footsteps in the Snow, The Red River Diary of Isobel Scott by Carol Matas
Hoping for Home, Stories of Arrival
If I Die Before I Wake, The Flu Epidemic Diary of Fiona Macgregor by Jean Little
No Safe Harbour, The Halifax Explosion Diary of Charlotte Blackburn by Julie Lawson
Not a Nickel to Spare, The Great Depression Diary of Sally Cohen by Perry Nodelman
An Ocean Apart, The Gold Mountain Diary of Chin Mei-ling by Gillian Chan
Orphan at My Door, The Home Child Diary of Victoria Cope by Jean Little
A Prairie as Wide as the Sea, The Immigrant Diary of Ivy Weatherall by Sarah Ellis
Prisoners in the Promised Land, The Ukrainian Internment Diary of Anya Soloni
uk by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
A Rebel’s Daughter, The 1837 Rebellion Diary of Arabella Stevenson by Janet Lunn
A Ribbon of Shining Steel, The Railway Diary of Kate Cameron by Julie Lawson
A Season for Miracles, Twelve Tales of Christmas
That Fatal Night, The Titanic Diary of Dorothy Wilton by Sarah Ellis
To Stand On My Own, The Polio Epidemic Diary of Noreen Robertson by Barbara Haworth-Attard
A Trail of Broken Dreams, The Gold Rush Diary of Harriet Palmer by Barbara Haworth-Attard
Turned Away, The World War II Diary of Devorah Bernstein by Carol Matas
Where the River Takes Me, The Hudson’s Bay Company Diary of Jenna Sinclair by Julie Lawson
Whispers of War, The War of 1812 Diary of Susanna Merritt by Kit Pearson
Winter of Peril, The Newfoundland Diary of Sophie Loveridge by Jan Andrews
With Nothing But Our Courage, The Loyalist Diary of Mary MacDonald by Karleen Bradford
Go to www.scholastic.ca/dearcanada for information on the Dear Canada series — see inside the books, read an excerpt or a review, post a review, and more.
