Dear Canada
Dear Canada is a series of historical novels for older girls first published starting in 2001 to the present by Scholastic Canada Ltd. They are similar to the Dear America series, each book is written in the form of the diary of a fictional young woman living during an important event in Canadian history. Today, the Dear Canada books are very popular amongst Canadian readers.
Each book is written in the form of a diary of a young woman's life during an important event or time period in Canadian history. The Dear Canada series covers a wide range of topics, including: The arrival of the filles du roi to New France, the arrival of settlers to Canada, the banishment of the Acadians, the Seven Years' War, the War of 1812, the Metis, World I, World War II, and many other time periods. The breadth of historical topics covered in these books through fiction makes the Dear Canada series a favorite teaching device of history schoolteachers around the country.
Here's the official site.
- Bittersweet Ending: Some of the books end with this type of ending, with some of the heroine's friends and family dead or missing. The epilogues also count as well. Also overlaps with the Downer Ending.
- Canada, Eh?
- Cool Big Sis: the main characters show elements of this if they have younger siblings, and their older sisters are this as well.
- Did Not Do the Research: Despite the relative accuracy of much of the stories and historical items, there are many things that are either just incorrect enough or flat-out wrong.
- Girls Need Role Models: These books inspired a generation of female history nerds.
- Historical Domain Character: The books often portray several well-known historical figures in the books, although they are only background characters and/or briefly mentioned or seen.
- Innocent Inaccurate
- Noble Savage: Books set in The Wild West or the New World often uses this trope.
- Point of View: All of the books are written in 1st person narration.
- Roman à Clef: Usually it will recreate things that happened in history, only on a smaller scale and before the actual even happens.
- Scrapbook Story: Every book in the series is in a diary format.
- Shown Their Work: At the end of each book is "Life In (insert time era here) Canada" where it shows how life was like in Canada as well as historical background information.
- Unreliable Narrator: The books narrator is somewhat unreliable, considering the age and the point of view of the girl.
- Where Are They Now? Epilogue: Each book ends with an epilogue, explaining what happens to the character, her family and her friends (when applicable) after the book ends.