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Living Freight
Orphaned in England at the time of the Industrial Revolution, Emma becomes a passenger aboard the first brideship destined for Victoria. She begins to build a new life for herself. until a man steps forward to claim her only possession, her mother's. engagement ring. Who is he?
174 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1998
10 people want to read
About the author
Dayle Campbell Gaetz
16 books6 followersNo doubt about it, I've always loved books. When we were small, my parents always read to my sister and me at bedtime. My dad used a sleepy-yawny voice that I now realize was his attempt to make us fall asleep.
As the younger sister, I got so mad when it worked!
I read tons of books as a kid and on into my twenties and thirties.
I still read now, but not nearly as much. Don't know why, maybe age, maybe becoming a writer myself, maybe both, but not as many books intrigue me, pull me in, involve me in characters' lives as before.
I love to write, and began writing stories for kids at my favorite age, nine to twelve. Then I grew up a little to write teen books.
'Disappearing Act',is a short but exciting crime novel is my first venture in to grown up fiction!
As the younger sister, I got so mad when it worked!
I read tons of books as a kid and on into my twenties and thirties.
I still read now, but not nearly as much. Don't know why, maybe age, maybe becoming a writer myself, maybe both, but not as many books intrigue me, pull me in, involve me in characters' lives as before.
I love to write, and began writing stories for kids at my favorite age, nine to twelve. Then I grew up a little to write teen books.
'Disappearing Act',is a short but exciting crime novel is my first venture in to grown up fiction!
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 13, 2020
3.5
In this entertaining piece of historical fiction for older children/younger teenagers, Gaetz tells the story of 13-year-old Emma Curtis. It is 1862, and the young girl and her seriously ill mother, Jenny, have been laid off from a Manchester spinning mill. With the American Civil War raging, there’s no cotton being shipped to England from the American South. The factory has had to be temporarily shuttered. The mother and daughter are in dire straits. With no money coming in, they can barely manage to purchase the stale bread a kindly baker offers at a much-reduced price, never mind pay the rent for their squalid lodgings. Before she dies, Jenny makes Emma promise she will never go into a workhouse (a crucial key to survival) and that she will always make an effort to speak proper English (a route to upward mobility). Emma receives the ring her father gave her mother as well as some notes her mother recorded in cursive, which tell something of the family history. Unfortunately, Emma’s schooling has been very limited. She is essentially illiterate.
After wandering out of Manchester, the frightened, cold, and starving girl is taken in by a warm-hearted woman, a parson’s wife. Eventually, though, the woman and her clergyman husband arrange for Emma to travel on a “bride ship” to one of the newest British Colonies: British Columbia. It’s all part of a charitable enterprise funded by the (real-life) Miss Angela Burdett-Coutts, an English woman who used her considerable inheritance to keep impoverished young girls out of prostitution and provide them with other opportunities. The British colonies are in need of young women like Emma to become wives of the many adventuring men already living there. The women are expected to exert a peaceable, Christian influence on settlements.
After a three-month ocean journey, Emma arrives in Victoria, BC, and is lucky enough to be selected by Governor Douglas’s wife, Amelia, a woman of Cree ancestry, to work in the Douglas household as a servant. Now safe, Emma begins to have dreams of her own—dreams involving adventure and a free and independent life. However, a series of coincidences cause the girl to make some surprising discoveries about her mother’s and her own history. They will prove to be life-changing
Gaetz effectively interweaves a lot of 19th-century British Columbian history and some interesting real-life figures into Emma’s story. She provides more information about these people in an appendix. Gaetz also (less effectively) incorporates some Victorian vocabulary into her book and a glossary that can be consulted to understand the unfamiliar words. Frankly, I don’t know why she bothered with this in a book intended for children. The words are, for the most part, no longer in use and therefore of little value to a middle-school student. They don’t even add much flavour. The annoyance of looking up the terms outweighs any added authenticity.
As an adult, I noticed echoes of Bronte’s Jane Eyre in the book; Emma can be as fierce and outspoken as Jane, whose story is, in fact, read aloud to her at one point in the story. There are also Dickensian elements. Yes, the book is slightly predictable, even a little formulaic, for an adult, and there are a few too many parsons in the pudding. However, I still think that certain girls I know would enjoy the story. It shines a light on a bit of BC history that I wasn’t familiar with.
In this entertaining piece of historical fiction for older children/younger teenagers, Gaetz tells the story of 13-year-old Emma Curtis. It is 1862, and the young girl and her seriously ill mother, Jenny, have been laid off from a Manchester spinning mill. With the American Civil War raging, there’s no cotton being shipped to England from the American South. The factory has had to be temporarily shuttered. The mother and daughter are in dire straits. With no money coming in, they can barely manage to purchase the stale bread a kindly baker offers at a much-reduced price, never mind pay the rent for their squalid lodgings. Before she dies, Jenny makes Emma promise she will never go into a workhouse (a crucial key to survival) and that she will always make an effort to speak proper English (a route to upward mobility). Emma receives the ring her father gave her mother as well as some notes her mother recorded in cursive, which tell something of the family history. Unfortunately, Emma’s schooling has been very limited. She is essentially illiterate.
After wandering out of Manchester, the frightened, cold, and starving girl is taken in by a warm-hearted woman, a parson’s wife. Eventually, though, the woman and her clergyman husband arrange for Emma to travel on a “bride ship” to one of the newest British Colonies: British Columbia. It’s all part of a charitable enterprise funded by the (real-life) Miss Angela Burdett-Coutts, an English woman who used her considerable inheritance to keep impoverished young girls out of prostitution and provide them with other opportunities. The British colonies are in need of young women like Emma to become wives of the many adventuring men already living there. The women are expected to exert a peaceable, Christian influence on settlements.
After a three-month ocean journey, Emma arrives in Victoria, BC, and is lucky enough to be selected by Governor Douglas’s wife, Amelia, a woman of Cree ancestry, to work in the Douglas household as a servant. Now safe, Emma begins to have dreams of her own—dreams involving adventure and a free and independent life. However, a series of coincidences cause the girl to make some surprising discoveries about her mother’s and her own history. They will prove to be life-changing
Gaetz effectively interweaves a lot of 19th-century British Columbian history and some interesting real-life figures into Emma’s story. She provides more information about these people in an appendix. Gaetz also (less effectively) incorporates some Victorian vocabulary into her book and a glossary that can be consulted to understand the unfamiliar words. Frankly, I don’t know why she bothered with this in a book intended for children. The words are, for the most part, no longer in use and therefore of little value to a middle-school student. They don’t even add much flavour. The annoyance of looking up the terms outweighs any added authenticity.
As an adult, I noticed echoes of Bronte’s Jane Eyre in the book; Emma can be as fierce and outspoken as Jane, whose story is, in fact, read aloud to her at one point in the story. There are also Dickensian elements. Yes, the book is slightly predictable, even a little formulaic, for an adult, and there are a few too many parsons in the pudding. However, I still think that certain girls I know would enjoy the story. It shines a light on a bit of BC history that I wasn’t familiar with.
August 12, 2013
Good historical fiction set in BC.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews