All posts by Pamela

About Pamela

Pamela is an Information Assistant at Vaughan Public Libraries. She loves reading all kinds of books including fantasy, historical fiction, mysteries and non-fiction.  |  Meet the team

Pamela’s Picks: Rilla Of Ingleside

Rilla

 

With the 100th anniversary of the start of the first world war coming up I’ve been rereading one of my favorite books that takes place during that time, Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery. While this book is marketed to children it can be enjoyed equally well by adults and indeed I think I was too young to appreciate it when I read it the first time as a child. Rilla is the youngest child of Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe and is turning fifteen in the summer of 1914. She is a pretty and frivolous girl whose only goal is to have a good time. The book chronicles the changes that Rilla, her family, her community and the world go through because of the war. While reluctant at the beginning, Rilla does her part for the war effort by starting a chapter of the Junior Red Cross, organizes concerts to raise funds and sells war bonds. She even takes in  an abandoned baby and raises it, to her family’s great surprise.  She has to cope with tragedy too when her favorite brother Walter is killed in action. All this helps her mature, change and fulfill her potential in ways that she might not have done otherwise.

Rilla was based on the real diaries that Lucy Maud Montgomery kept during WWI and because of that it has a realism that I find is missing in other novels I’ve read that are set in the same time period. So if you want find out what it was like on the homefront during WWI as well as what happens to Anne’s family, pick up Rilla and enjoy.

Pamela’s Picks: The World Of Downton Abbey

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World of Downton Abbey

 

 

 

 

 

Fans of the television show Downton Abbey might like to read The World of Downton Abbey by Julian Fellowes. This book gives an historical perspective on the life and times of the Edwardian Age and World War I as well as a behind the scenes look at the filming of the show. Readers can learn about the fashion of the times, the life of high class society, what life was really like at the front during World War I, the changing role of women and women’s suffrage, and how servants really lived. There are also comments from the producers and actors and lots of behind the scenes photos. If you like this book you may want to continue on reading about Downton in the books The Chronicles of Downton Abbey and Behind The Scenes at Downton Abbey.

 

Black History Month – Viola Desmond And Paul Robeson

Celebrate Black History Month by leaning about two little known activists in the fight for civil rights in Canada and the United States.

Viola Desmond cover

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most people know of Rosa Parks but do they know about Viola Desmond? Viola was born in Halifax and in 1946 she refused to sit in the balcony designed for blacks in a theatre and after she sat in the whites only area she was removed and arrested. Viola was found guilty of not paying the one cent difference in tax between the two sections but decided to fight the charge. During the trial no one mentioned the segregated seating policy but focused only on tax evasion. Efforts to have the conviction overturned at higher levels of court failed. After the trial Viola moved to Montreal and died in 1965. She was granted a posthumous pardon in 2010.  Viola’s protest happened nine years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a segregated bus in the United States.

Paul Robeson image

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might know of Paul Robeson as an actor in films such as Show Boat but did you know that he was also an early campaigner for civil rights in the United States? Yes, before there was Martin Luther King Junior there was Paul Robeson. The struggles against fascism in the 1930s in both Germany and Spain helped turn Paul into a political activist. In the early 1940s he called upon Americans to demand that Congress pass civil rights legislation. He also asked President Truman to enact legislation to end lynching. Unfortunately neither appeals were successful. Because of his public speaking on these and other topics plus visits to the USSR his concerts in America were cancelled and he had to go to Europe to perform. During the McCarthy era he was called before the HUAC where he refused to deny that he was a Communist. He spent the next few years toruing in Europe and Russia. Paul died in 1976 and is unfortunately little remembered today.  But his activism helped pave the way for people like Martin Luther King Junior to continue the work to get civil rights legislation passed in the United States.