Dear Canada: A Trail of Broken Dreams: The Gold Rush Diary of Harriet Palmer, Overland to the Cariboo, 1862 by Barbara Haworth-Attard

A Trail of Broken Dreams: The Gold Rush Diary of Harriet Palmer, Overland to the Cariboo, 1862 by Barbara Haworth-Attard

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dear Canada (1862)

A typical story of the hardships going along the trail overland from Winnipeg to the Cariboo during the Cariboo Gold Rush of British Columbia. I've read so many books about the various gold rushes that this had nothing new to offer and was a fairly uneventful tale; though I did find the ending picked up and went in a different direction than I had at first expected. The story also has a girl pretending to be a boy and I really don't like this device in juvenile historicals as it usually, as it does here, follows the expected tropes of "wow! how much easier it is to be a boy. I can wear pants and swear!" Haworth is a good writer though, and if you've not read anything about the Cariboo before the experience is fully realised here, for the intended age level. Not bad.



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