Image 14: Map by Paul Heersink/Paperglyphs. Map date © 1999 Government of Canada with permission from Natural Resources Canada.
The publisher wishes to thank Dr. Stuart Houston, M.D., professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan, and author of Steps on the Road to Medicare and (with Dr. Bill Waiser) Tommy’s Team: The People Behind the Douglas Years, for his detailed vetting of the text and his memories of the polio years in Saskatchewan. Also our thanks to Barbara Hehner for her careful checking of the factual details.
For Margie Eaton, my sister-in-law, who has stood with me for thirty-seven years
Acknowledgements
Many thanks go out to a lot of people who helped with the creation of this book: To Dr. Lou Horlick, Dr. Stuart Houston and Dr. Bryan Young for their medical direction; Blenda Ramsay for sharing her polio journey with me; Saskatoon and Regina reference librarians; City of Saskatoon Archivist Jeff O’Brien; Sandy Bogart Johnston for her wonderful editing; Scott Treimel, my agent, for always looking out for me; and last but not least, love to my husband, Joe.
About the Author
One of the things that most interested Barbara Haworth-Attard about the polio epidemics during the early and mid 1900s in Canada was how children would cope with such a difficult challenge.
“Being somewhat of a control freak,” she says, “I am always interested in how people, in particular children, handle a situation out of their control, such as an illness. As a parent I could stop my sons from running out into the road, from jumping out of trees, from going too deep into the lake, by being vigilant. But when they became ill, it terrified me, because I couldn’t do anything about it.”
She found the research for the story both daunting and intriguing. “One thing I did learn while doing the research and writing this story is that even when events appear to be out of our control, we do, in fact, still have choices and we can choose to be helpless, or look around for ways to be hopeful and proactive. That is what I wanted to do with Noreen. I wanted to show that there is always a way forward.”
She also found the characters reminding her of her own experiences. “When I’m writing a book, I find it is the little details that make it real. You can have big explosions between siblings, but when I sent Noreen and her brother to the pet parade and the bunnies ate each other’s tails and Edmund wouldn’t cooperate — that is the sort of thing that makes a book real.” She adds with a smile: “Most of us have siblings we want to thump at some time.”
Barbara is a Governor General’s Award finalist and the multi-award-winning author of over a dozen novels, including another Dear Canada, A Trail of Broken Dreams, which was shortlisted for the CLA Book of the Year Award. Some of her other books, both historical and contemporary, include Home Child, Love-Lies-Bleeding, Forget-Me-Not, Irish Chain, Flying Geese, Theories of Relativity, A is for Angst and Haunted. Her novels have claimed many awards and nominations, among them a CLA Notable Book, a Mr. Christie’s Book Award nomination, two Geoffrey Bilson Honour Books, and nominations for the Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award, the Red Cedar Award and the Silver Birch Award. Theories of Relativity was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award and Haunted is nominated for the CLA Young Adult Canadian Book Award.
Barbara spends her non-writing time reading, quilting and being entertained by her two cats.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Noreen Robertson is a fictional character created by the author, and her diary is a work of fiction.
www.scholastic.ca
Copyright © 2010 by Barbara Haworth-Attard.
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 this e-book on-screen. No part of this publication 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.
ISBN: 978-1-4431-2815-5
First e-book edition: December 2015
Books in the Dear Canada Series
All Fall Down, The Landslide Diary of Abby Roberts by Jean Little
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
A Country of Our Own, The Confederation Diary of Rosie Dunn by Karleen Bradford
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
Flame and Ashes, The Great Fire Diary of Triffie Winsor by Janet McNaughton
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
Pieces of the Past, The Holocaust Diary of Rose Rabinowitz by Carol Matas
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 Soloniuk 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 Sea of Sorrows, The Typhus Epidemic Diary of Johanna Leary by Norah McClintock
A Season for Miracles, Twelve Tales of Christmas
That Fatal Night, The Titanic Diary of Dorothy Wilton by Sarah Ellis
A Time for Giving, Ten Tales of Christmas
Torn Apart, The Internment Diary of Mary Kobayashi by Susan Aihoshi
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 Susannah 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.
yscale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
To Stand on My Own Page 12
