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Acadian Star
The Acadian Star competition is the biggest thing to ever happen in Meg Gallant's small Cape Breton town. Meg dreams of performing onstage with her best friend Nève. If they're lucky, they might even make it to the finals in Halifax. But Meg's weird old aunt, Tante Perle, has been acting stranger and stranger―and just before the finale of the competition, she whisks Meg away from everything she knows. Meg suddenly finds herself trapped in the time of the tragic Acadian Deportation―and she has to choose between escaping to her own time and saving a girl who looks remarkably like Neve. Why is she trapped in the eighteenth century? Will she be able to save this stranger, so quickly becoming a friend? And where does Tante Perle fit in with all this?
This remarkable book for middle readers introduces us to contemporary Acadian characters, and also offers a young girl's perspective on the Acadian Deportation.
Hélène Boudreau is an Acadian writer and artist. A native of Isle Madame, Nova Scotia, she writes fiction and non-fiction for children and young adults from her home in Markham, Ontario. This is her first novel.
This remarkable book for middle readers introduces us to contemporary Acadian characters, and also offers a young girl's perspective on the Acadian Deportation.
Hélène Boudreau is an Acadian writer and artist. A native of Isle Madame, Nova Scotia, she writes fiction and non-fiction for children and young adults from her home in Markham, Ontario. This is her first novel.
136 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 2008
48 people want to read
About the author
Helene Boudreau
22 books253 followersHélène Boudreau writes fiction and non-fiction for children and young adults. She is also a compulsive walker, a chicklet wrangler and a lover of cheese and cheap chocolate.
Her tween novel REAL MERMAIDS DON'T WEAR TOE RINGS is a 2011 Crystal Kite Member Choice Award Finalist.
Her tween novel REAL MERMAIDS DON'T WEAR TOE RINGS is a 2011 Crystal Kite Member Choice Award Finalist.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 30, 2024
Because I have always been very much interested in the history of the Canadian Maritimes and especially in the tragic (and in my opinion completely unjustified, despicable) expulsion and deportation of the Acadians between 1755 and 1764 (and for the most part simply because the Acadians dared to desire neutrality during the French and Indian War, during the North American version of Europe's Seven Years' War), I was therefore and naturally rather looking forward to reading Hélène Boudreau's Acadian Star, seeing that it promised to combine history and my fascination with Acadian culture with one of my favourite novel genres, namely time travelling.
However, while I was definitely hoping and even expecting that Meg (Marguerite) Gallant's story of being magically and deliberately transported by her eccentric and enigmatic Aunt Perle from the present to 18th century Nova Scotia, in order to change the course of events, in order to prevent her family's separation and deportation, to be an engaging and worth my while reading experience, unfortunately almost everything about Acadian Star, from the author's frustratingly simplistic, often awkwardly over sentimental writing style to the sad and sorry fact that ALL of the featured and presented characters are (at least to and for me) much too underdeveloped and thus very much one-dimensional, has basically and definitely just majorly rubbed me the wrong proverbial way (not to mention that the thematically and culturally rich history of the Acadians and the Acadian Expulsion do fall factually and therefore also narrationally, textually rather if not actually massively flat, with hardly any sense of time and place, due to a serious lack of actual and bona fide featured and presented historic details, and this even once Meg Gallant has been cast into her family's past). And therefore, I cannot with a clear conscience all that much recommend Acadian Star, especially since there are actually and in fact a goodly number of much much more readable and in particular considerably more historically realistic and detailed, accurate Acadian-themed children's novels on the market.
However, while I was definitely hoping and even expecting that Meg (Marguerite) Gallant's story of being magically and deliberately transported by her eccentric and enigmatic Aunt Perle from the present to 18th century Nova Scotia, in order to change the course of events, in order to prevent her family's separation and deportation, to be an engaging and worth my while reading experience, unfortunately almost everything about Acadian Star, from the author's frustratingly simplistic, often awkwardly over sentimental writing style to the sad and sorry fact that ALL of the featured and presented characters are (at least to and for me) much too underdeveloped and thus very much one-dimensional, has basically and definitely just majorly rubbed me the wrong proverbial way (not to mention that the thematically and culturally rich history of the Acadians and the Acadian Expulsion do fall factually and therefore also narrationally, textually rather if not actually massively flat, with hardly any sense of time and place, due to a serious lack of actual and bona fide featured and presented historic details, and this even once Meg Gallant has been cast into her family's past). And therefore, I cannot with a clear conscience all that much recommend Acadian Star, especially since there are actually and in fact a goodly number of much much more readable and in particular considerably more historically realistic and detailed, accurate Acadian-themed children's novels on the market.
October 25, 2009
A talent competition! Time travel! Acadian history! Friendship! Family! Cooky great aunts! Dolphins! It's like a quiet book and an adventure book in one. Entertaining food for thought for middle-grade readers.
January 3, 2026
Great début novel:) I enjoyed reading this book of friendship, and all tied in with the Acadians’ deportation.
April 15, 2009
extra 1/2 star.
A nice little story about friendship. It's initially set in present day Cape Breton with some time traveling back to Le Grand Dérangement.
A nice little story about friendship. It's initially set in present day Cape Breton with some time traveling back to Le Grand Dérangement.
June 13, 2010
MY students LOVE this book@!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews