Conversions

Road to Avonlea #6

by Gail Hamilton, L.M. Montgomery (creator)

A visiting missionary's tales of adventure send Sara Stanley on a mission, accompanied by Peter Craig, the hired hand at Rose Cottage, during which she discovers the real meaning of goodness and charity.

Genres: Canada, Historical, Childrens, Young Adult

123 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Gail Hamilton has been creating novels since the great romance boom began, writing for Harlequin and other publishers. She has been a farm hand, English teacher, ad copywriter, and once rode a British Bedford truck across the Sahara and back to see Timbuctu. All of it is fodder for her fiction. She is drawn to action, romance, adventure and characters with a distinctly odd twist. These show up in her many romance novels and her fast-moving historical, The Tomorrow Country.

After trying urban life in Europe and Toronto, Gail returned to live on the family farm where she grew up. In this rural corner hugging the north shore of Lake Ontario, Gail digs into the rich, raucous local history. She cherishes a secret passion for animated movies and loves photographing the nature all around her, reading the constant changes like a newspaper every morning.

When she blogs, it’s apt to be about a wind-downed oak that was a beloved childhood friend, amazing chipmunk facts, a dramatic house fire in the village, odd Victorian crimes, or what vampires might do when the sun goes red giant and gobbles up our planet. “Somehow,” she says, “I can’t get into hard-nosed book promotion. I’d rather write about the quirky what ifs that pop into my head. I am lucky to live in the vibrant natural countryside so many urbanites secretly thirst for but cannot access. That’s why all those tough-shelled professionals love to read about the return of garter snakes to the spring air or how field mice survive an ice storm. Our ancestral genes still tell us we are supposed to be out there, living it for ourselves."

What better place to hatch new tales for everyone’s enjoyment.

Reviews

[Noelle Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great novelization. It did give a little more insight into the episode than was able to be shown onscreen and I appreciated that as a fan of the series.

[Kireja · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Conversions" is a novelization of an episode (season 1 episode 7) from the popular Canadian TV series Road to Avonlea. One thing that readers- especially new fans of the series- should keep in mind is that the novel is set in the early 20th century (1903–1912), and one of the storylines involves a missionary narrative, which means that there'll be some usage of outdated terms with obvious colonial undertones. I actually didn't notice the problematic use of such language the first time I read the book at 12 or 13, but it was glaringly obvious now. That being said, I do think that the novel provides an opportunity to learn about how missionaries viewed and treated Indigenous populations, as well as how being "different" because of class, religious (Christian) denomination, or lifestyle set you apart, and sometimes made you inferior, in Avonlea. Yet, it's those characters who are different, namely Peter Craig and Peg Bowen, that teach the citizens of Avonlea to finally be more accepting and kind to their fellow neighbours. I gave this book a two star rating the first time around, but after reading it for a second time, what I loved about the book was reading about Peter Craig and the experiences and struggles of a young hired hand at the turn of the 19th century, as well as Peg Bowen aka the witch of Avonlea because she lives by her own rules and lives off the land. "Conversions" is a nostalgic read for fans of the series.

[Allison Ripley-Duggan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it! Such a riveting tale. I couldn’t put it down. I got so engrossed in the story that I actually felt like I was apart of the story. I also love the TV series and movies as well.