This book explores Roy’s memories of the young boys and girls she taught in rural Manitoba before she started writing. It’s an interesting portrait of an era, a picture of the start of multiculturalism in Canada, a tender look at children as they face the wilds of school for the first time.

There’s no narrative thread to speak of through most of the parts, and a strange sort of distance in the only one that has a thread throughout. Still, it’s worth a read.

I was pleasantly surprised, because I’d read some stories from this in a French Literature class in University and hated them. It must have been the teacher. Good to know.