Cindy Vallar's Blog - Posts Tagged "canada"

Two Times a Traitor by Karen Bass

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Being uprooted from your home and moving to a new country can ruin your life. At least that’s how twelve-year-old Lazare Berenger sees it and he blames his dad for doing so without any discussion. They’ve been arguing now for seven months, but Laz wildly lashes out while vacationing in Halifax, Canada. Out of control he runs off to explore the Citadel alone and let his anger ebb. Deep inside a tunnel under the fort that an ancestor once guarded during the American Revolution, he trips, falls, and blacks out.

When Laz awakens and emerges from the tunnel, Halifax has disappeared. Instead of a fort, there are only silhouettes of old sailing ships and an English sentry pointing a long-barreled rifle at him. Laz assumes this is an elaborately staged trick of his father’s to make him cease rebelling and behave. During his confrontation with British Captain Elijah Hawkins, however, he painfully discovers this is not a charade. The year is 1745 and Captain Hawkins believes him to be a French spy, not only because of how Laz pronounces his name and his ability to speak both French and English, but also because he wears a St. Christopher’s medal – a decoration only a Catholic would wear and the English are not Papists.

Laz believes his medal holds the key to getting back home, but Hawkins confiscates it. If Laz’s purpose is to learn more about the upcoming invasion of Louisbourg and take that information back to the French, he will hang as a spy. But there is one way to earn Hawkins’ trust and regain his medal – sneak into the fortified city of Louisbourg, cause mischief, and return to the ship. On the journey closer to where he will disembark, he makes both friends and enemies, one of whom will do his utmost to kill Laz simply because he’s French.

Sneaking ashore where the French will easily find him, getting to Louisbourg, and convincing the French that the English plan to attack turns out to be more difficult than Laz imagines. Only one officer takes him seriously. Port Commander Pierre Morpain not only listens and asks questions, he provides Laz with food, a place to shelter, and new clothes. Laz becomes his confidential messenger – a job that teaches him how to get around and introduces him to many citizens and soldiers. Before long, he can come and go as he pleases without arousing anyone’s curiosity. But the longer he’s among the French, the more he feels like he’s found a new home among friends the harder it becomes to betray them and Morpain, who treats him like a son.

Two Times a Traitor is a riveting time-slip adventure. From first page to last you are caught in the vortex that whisks him from the present back to the past. When the sword slices his hand or musket balls whiz by, you feel and hear both. His emotions become yours as he wends his way through dangerous actions and foreign places where he doesn’t know the rules, yet his life depends on knowing them. Bass vividly recreates past places and times and her characters, both good and bad, compel you to discover how Laz resolves the conflicts he faces as he matures from an immature youth to a teenager wise beyond his years. Beware: Putting the book down is near impossible. Nor is this book just for older children and young adults; adults will equally be enthralled with this historical novel that explores a period in Canadian history of which few Americans are aware. Once you begin to read, you soon discover why this highly recommended book was chosen as a 2017 Junior Library Guild selection and one of the Best Books for Kids & Teens for 2017.




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Black Flag of the North: Bartholomew Roberts, King of the Atlantic Pirates by Victor Suthren

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


On 17 May 1682, a son is born to a Welsh family. His name is John Robert(s) and he has a fifty percent possibility of reaching his third birthday. If he survives until then, his chances of attaining adulthood are even less; against all odds, John lives into his late thirties. Between the recording of his birth and 1718, no record has been found to explain his formative years and how he goes from working on land to being Second or Third Mate of a slave ship. Somehow, he gains navigational skills, fighting tactics, and nautical expertise – all of which prove instrumental in launching him on a path his parents never foresee the day he comes into this world.

Two fateful days mark the beginning and end of John’s final years. In 1718, off the West African coast, the slaver on which he works is taken by pirates. Their captain, Howell Davis, is a fellow Welshman; this common bond connects the two men in spite of John’s initial rebuffs to join in the sweet trade. Yet the day eventually comes when John decides “a merry and short life” is better than his current one. Taking the name “Bartholomew,” he embarks on a career in piracy. Six weeks after meeting the pirates, they elect him captain after Davis’s demise. Although atypical of many of his mates – he abstains from drink and wenching – he possesses traits and skills necessary to lead and succeed. Pillaging more than 450 ships also brings him notoriety, which garners the attention of authorities and forces the pirates to look elsewhere for plunder several times. His career ends where it begins: off the coast of Africa at the hands of the British Royal Navy.

Suthren opens his account with what is and isn’t known about this legendary pirate. He also explores what may have influenced Roberts’ upbringing, as well as possibilities of how he came to be an accomplished mariner. Before delving into particulars about his piratical career, the author devotes three chapters to necessary background information on piracy (especially between 1680 and the 1720s), the slave trade and slave ships, and pirates in Canada – the place where Roberts went from ordinary to unparalleled. Along the way readers meet a variety of other pirates, including Walter Kennedy, Peter Easton, Sheila NaGeira, Edward Low, and Eric Cobham and Maria Lindsey. Also mentioned is pirate hunter Sir Henry Mainwaring, although without any hint of his piratical past. While the majority of passages quoted within the narrative come from other historians, Suthren does include one extant letter from Roberts to the highest ranking soldier on St. Christopher (St. Kitts today), who dared to fire on the pirates. Contrary to what the book says, Roberts is not the first captain to implement a code of conduct to govern his men. These articles derive from a legal document used by buccaneers, a sample of which appears in Alexandre Exquemelin’s The Buccaneers of America (1678).

In addition to several period maps and two illustrations, the book has a bibliography and index. Endnotes provide source citations, although none is provided for one curious reference in the text to pirates blackening their faces so they appear more threatening. At times, Suthren shares how twists of fate lead men on differing paths. James Cook possessed similar traits and skills with Roberts and both were shaped by the time they spent in Canadian waters. Black Flag of the North provides a good overview of the period, while succinctly entertaining readers with the meteoric rise and fall of the man often referred to as “King of the Pirates.”




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