Nathalie: An Acadian’s Tale of Tragedy and Triumph

Volume XXIX / Issue 38 - June 2 / 2023

Nathalie: An Acadian’s Tale of Tragedy and Triumph

Author: 
Debra Amirault Camelin
Vancouver, BC: Ronsdale Press, 2023
364 pp., trade pbk. & ebook, $23.95 (pbk.)
ISBN: 
9781553806714 (pbk.)
9781553806721 (ebook)
Grades: 
Grades 7-10
Ages: 
Ages 12-15
Review by: 
Ann Ketcheson
3
Excerpt: 

Nathalie Belliveau crouched in the reddish-brown sand at the edge of the shoreline and watched flames light up the overcast night sky. Streaks of red bled through darkened, patchy clouds. Billows of smoke rose from the flames and cast shadows that morphed into terrifying creatures. Blazing tendrils faded as they cascaded downward and out of sight.

Nathalie’s small fingers clawed unceremoniously at the frigid waterlogged grains, dampening the hem of her yellow-striped skirt and muddied blue apron. She felt her body stiffen with each laboured breath rising from her chest and constricting in her throat. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Behind her, the ocean had receded nearly twenty metres; ceaseless rolling waves continued to crest, their white caps reflecting briefly in the sporadic moonlight before they tumbled, rolled and rose again – their faithful rhythm a painful contradiction to the turmoil she was feeling.

Grief-stricken, the thirteen-year-old Acadian girl sunk to her bottom, wrapped her arms around skirted knees and buried her face in the skirt’s folds. Her body ached for sleep. She wished this was a nightmare from which she would soon awake.

Nathalie heard Brigitte, huddled beside her, moaning softly in the darkness as she, too, watched the fires in disbelief. And although Nathalie could not hear the sounds of collapsing timber homes and outbuildings being consumed by flames, she knew that her life was forever changed in this terrifying moment.”

Nathalie’s life is forever changed because of the 1755 expulsion of the Acadians from their Nova Scotia homes. Nathalie ends up walking across much of the province, encounters Mi’kmaq who assist her, is deported, serves as an indentured servant in North Carolina, and eventually makes her way back home many years later.

Nathalie: An Acadian’s Tale of Tragedy and Triumph is a coming-of-age story in which young Nathalie must learn to fend for herself in a variety of difficult and dangerous situations. Her betrothed, Ange, faces similar hardships, and much of the tension in the story is their forced separation and eventual reunion.

The story is based on two actual Acadian families, ancestors of author Debra Amirault Camelin. She blends historical characters and facts with well-researched and imaginative fiction to give her young adult readers lots of Canadian history as well as adventure and romance.

The main characters seem somewhat one-dimensional, and the story occasionally bogs down in a myriad of details which add historical content but don’t seem to move the plot along. Author Camelin becomes didactic in places, and this also slows the momentum of the story.

That said, readers who enjoy historical fiction and who are willing to take the time for a 350+ page novel will learn a great deal about the Acadian deportation from a firsthand point of view which, as the title indicates, includes both the tragedies and triumphs of the many people affected by the 1755 expulsion.

Recommended
Reviewer: 

Ann Ketcheson, a retired teacher-librarian and high school teacher of English and French, lives in Ottawa, Ontario.