Author of the The Tin Flute

from the back:
There is Clair, a fatherless boy unhappy when he has no Christmas present to give his teacher. Nil, whose angel voice unleashes such joy it frightens him. And there is Mederic, with his violet hostile eyes, riding his fiery stallion across the prairie. Watching over them is Gabrielle, their eighteen-year-old teacher, half child herself, who opens for them a world of hope, as they enfold her in their world of love.

On the way to Ibis3 for her CanLit project.

Thanks sqdancer! Came in the mail today.

I picked this book as #3 for my CanLit project (see my blog for more info).

What an enchanting, wonderful book! Light and pleasant (even when it made me cry! :) ). I loved it. Each child, each experience is one that will stick with me for a while. I loved Roy's commentary about childhood and nature that was interspersed throughout. I'd love to try and read her work in French. Maybe with her next one, I'll read the original & translation side by side.

I'm going to be doing a bookring for this book, so if you're interested, PM me.

"Set in the prairies in the 1930s, and rich with the author’s own memories of her time there as a young woman, this is a powerful story of an impressionable and passionate young teacher and the pupils, from impoverished immigrant families, whose lives she touches. Children of My Heart bears unforgettable testimony to the healing power love exerts on the wounds of loneliness and poverty."

Ring Guidelines:

1. When you receive the book, make a journal entry to let me know it got to you ok.
2. While reading the book, feel free to post on the appropriate Book Talk Forum thread here.
3. When you're done, make a journal entry and let us know what you thought.
4. PM the person next in order (please check here for the current order) for a current mailing address (please confirm that they're ready to receive the book).
5. Mail the book, make a journal entry and mark the book as travelling.

*keep the book for a maximum of 4 weeks. If you feel you can't read it in this amount of time, or you wish to be skipped for any reason, let me know & I'll rearrange the mailing order.
*sign your name inside the back cover of the book if you like.
*I've put in a CanLit bookmark that belongs with the book, so don't forget to include it when you mail it.
*feel free to include a postcard, bookmark or other trinket with the book.


Thanks & have fun reading!

Order of go:
sent on December 12/05
1. reader1107 (Wisconson, USA) arrived on December 19/05; sent on December 28/05
2. Pooker3 (Manitoba, Canada) - arrived January 10/06; sent on January 30/06
3. merimag (Shropshire, UK) - arrived February 3/06; sent on February 9/06
4. katyan (Keski-Suomi, Finland) - arrived February 14/06; sent on February 20/06
5. amberC (Northern Territory, Australia)- arrived February 28/06; sent on March 24/06
6. Purple-lilly (South Australia, Australia)- arrived March 28/06; sent on June 15/06
7. ldpaulson (California, USA)- arrived June 26/06; sent August 2/06
8. Thursday5 (Ohio, USA)- arrived August 3/06; sent August 8/06
9. bibliotreker (Pennsylvania, USA) - arrived August 12/06; sent August 20/06-->
... Back to Ibis3 (Ontario, Canada)

Received in the mail today! I look forward to reading it right away! Thanks!

This was quite an interesting book. I enjoyed it more because I'm a teacher. When I read about the Demetrioff family, I thought *We have one just like that!* The book had enough truths -- the delicate balance that is teaching, the varied relationships with students and families, etc. -- that a couple of times I checked to make sure it was fiction!

I look forward to the next in your CanLit series!

RELEASE NOTES:

Mailed out today to continue its journey. I'm curious to see if being a Canadian brings to the reading something that being a mere American lacks. :-) When I read the setting as being the plains (or the mountain area) and the Depression, I just made pictures in my mind of what I knew. Makes me curious, though -- does Europe still have plains and wide expanses?

Arrived in the post today! Thanks reader1107, ibis3 and sqdancer.

I've finished reading this lovely little book and have merimag's address, so will be sending it on to her on Monday. Thank you so much Ibis3 for sharing it with us. One cannot help but be touched by the exquisite (excruciating?) vulnerability of youth portrayed.
Like reader1107 when reading of the geography, I too pictured things I knew. When Gabrielle and Mederic, on horseback, emerge from between rocky peaks to view the sweeping plain, I was instantly reminded of leaving Riding Mountain National Park with its rock and forest, swooping down hill and knoll to the prairie, being able to see the shadow of cloud approach from miles away across the otherwise sunlit greens, browns, blues and yellows of farmland.

And then it hit me. Of course Gabrielle Roy grew up in Manitoba. The picture I saw could easily be the same she was describing. Many times as I have driven that route from Dauphin to Winnipeg, I have thought of taking a picture, but never have. Afterall, it is where I live and I can and do see it often enough. I wish I had now though so I could send it along with the book.

I also suddenly realized that Gabrielle Roy's childhood home is in Winnipeg (St. Boniface). I remember a few years ago talk of tearing it down and am pretty sure that it was not, but restored and turned into a museum of sorts. I will try and visit it tomorrow in the hopes that it is open and there will be some sort of bookmark, postcard or trinket I can include with the book.

I paid a visit to la maison Gabrielle Roy today. What a lovely home. I'm sending a postcard along with the book that shows the exterior of the house. If you want to see a few photos of the interior try visiting www.maisongabrielleroy.mb.ca.

I am also including a postcard of the Canadian prairies. I imagine this to be similar to the vision that greeted Mederic and Gabrielle when they went riding.

Book and enclosures are all packed for sending to merimag tomorrow.

On its way across the pond to merimag!

This has just arrived wonderfully accompanied by postcards and bookmarks! I am reading The Flanders Panel as part of a bookring but expect to get to this by early next week. I am woefully ignorant of Canadian lit. (as an American who left the US in '82 and has been living in the UK since '84) so I look forward to reading this- especially given what has been said in previous journal entries.

Although I live in the UK I am a transplanted American so I too could picture the plains I have visited in the States. I enjoyed the book. I would have liked to learn more about Gabrielle and how she lived. I can't imagine being 18 and being a teacher in an isolated outpost.

Many thanks for this ring. It was wonderfully accompanied by two book marks, two postcards and a pamphlet which added depth to the experience.

It will go into the post today to Katyan in Finland.

This tiny book arrived to me yesterday with all the wonderfull materials, thank you everybody for sharing them & the book! I'm looking forward to read it soon!

This was really a heart-warming little book. I truly enjoyed reading it & going back to the past and in the life of a teacher in Canandian prairies. I didn't read this kind of literature for a long time, somehow nowadays I mostly read the newest books, so it was nice to remember that there's many treasures like this book already existing. It gave me a desire to go to our local library to find more books like this. Thank you for sharing & giving some warmth in my heart in this now quite cold Finland!

I read this book also as a part of my Book from every country in the world-challenge (Canada).

RELEASE NOTES:

This book was sent to AmberC this morning! Enjoy!

And funnily, at the same time when I'm writing this journal, I saw on the left that AmberC just caught another book (The restaurant at the end of the universe)!

This book was waiting for me when i got home from my first day back at work after being off sick for the past 11 weeks. it was a pleasant surprise at the end of an exhausting day.

i love the enclosures, particularly the postcard of the Prairies.

i have a few other bookrings before it.

I work in a school and my children have attended a 2 teacher school in a farming community. This book spoke to me, it is hard to belive it is fiction. The school i work at has a Demetrioff family too.

Thankyou for sharing Ibis3. This is the 2nd book in your Canlit project i've read and loved.

I will be posting it to Purple-Lilly tomorrow.

Thankyou for this, gladly received and will read soon. I certainly arrived here quickly. I loved the enclosures, thankyou everyone for sharing these.

I loved this gentle little story, it made me smile and laugh and cry. I too had to remind myself that it was fiction, as it seemed so real and being a teacher I reflected on my first days of teaching in the country, and how naive but eager I was, and how precious it is to be loved by your first pupils, beforre you become a little complacent about it. The book made me think of Laura Ingalls Wilder's stories, I dont know if that is an ignorant Australian speaking who has no knowledge of Canadian plains, but I did enjoy those books too!

Posted off today to ldpaulson, I hope she enjoys it as much as I did, sent airmail, so hopefully will be there quickly

This book -- plus a bunch of author-related ephemera -- arrived in my mailbox this weekend. Alas, I am very far behind on my reading thanks to rings/rays hitting my mailbox simultaneously. I’m reading as fast as I possibly can between other life commitments and obligations. I'm actually tending to another book in the CanLit ring at present. I'll get to this book in good time and am looking forward to it because I have been enjoying the CanLit selections. Thanks Ibis3!

A deceptively fast read. The plot and subject matter is very similar to that of CHRISTY, only this is set on the Canadian plains and the book is much shorter than Catherine Marshall's. Although my French is rusty, I would like to try to read this in the language in which it was written some day. I should also like to try one of Roy's other books.

Neglected to mention that this book has been posted to the next reader in line.

It was with much pleasure that I found the package containing "Children of My Heart" in the pile of mail after returning from a trip. I look forward to reading it.

What a beautifully written book!
Having taught in a rural Ohio school in my youth I was able to identify with many of the stories in this book. Even if I had not been a teacher, Gabrielle Roy's sensitve writing and insight into the human spirit would have touched me deeply.
Mailing to bibliotreker today.

Arrived in the mail today with postcards and information on Gabrielle Roy. I've been looking forward to this one. It's next on my to read list, as soon as I finish reading another CanLit Ring book.

What a wonderful book on what it must of been like teaching in a rural school on the Canadian prarie wilderness in a time gone by. It starts out like a journal but it's more. I love the descriptions of the prarie, a place I've never been since I live in the east. It took me to a time and place I could never be a part of and brought me closer to the people that lived on the prarie wilderness, the best things about reading a book like this.

Since I'm last on the list I'll send this little book that's traveled world wide back home.

Thanks Ibis3 for choosing one.

Sent via air mail 24 Aug 2006

Children of My Heart arrived home safely yesterday. Thank you to all of you! How wonderful to get all those postcards. And thanks Pooker for the brochure about Gabrielle Roy--I'll probably send it out again with my next Roy book. And finally, thanks bibliotreker for the bookmark. :) You all made my day.

I'll probably send this out on another ring sometime in the future.