Books with author Joyce Wilson

John Wilson has created a compelling YA novel based on the folk hero, Albert &quot:Ginger&quot: Goodwin, also known as &quot:Red&quot: Goodwin from the colour of his hair and his radical social ideas. Goodwin was originally a miner from the north of England, who came to Canada and took up the cause of the working man during the Trail smelter strike and at the coal mines on Vancouver Island. His ideas were eventually considered so dangerous that a special constable was hired to hunt him down in the forest near Cumberland. Wilson tells the story of a young boy, Will Ryan, sent out from England after his father was killed in WW I, to live with his uncle, a mine manager, at Cumberland. Through a chance meeting in the forest with Red Goodwin, young Will has all his ideas turned upside down, especially when he sees first-hand how the miners are treated in the community and at the pit face. Soon Will finds himself caught between the demands of his uncle, his loyalty to the memory of his father, and the new vision of Goodwin who argues that the European war between Britain and Germany has parallels with the war between the mine owners and the mine workers. In an exciting story, filled with sudden turns and tragic events, young Will discovers that he must make a choice, a choice that will change his life forever."A masterful storyteller." —The Globe & Mail

In this dramatic young adult novel, Ian sets off in an open boat after an argument with his father, only to find himself swept out to the Pacific. Drifting and suffering from hypothermia, the young teen is visited by family ghosts who share stories of his ancestors and Canada’s pioneer past. Led by Emily, Ian’s great grandmother, a succession of long-dead ancestors and local characters appear on the boat telling him their stories—the stories of pioneer life on the Gulf Islands—bringing understanding of his family and inspiring Ian to persevere until dawn brings rescue.

Short-listed for the 2002 Canadian Children’s Book Centre Norma Fleck Award Norman Bethune was a doctor who devoted his life to helping others and whose story is a remarkable one, cut short by his early death in China in 1938. This biography in our Stories of Canada series traces his life from his childhood spent moving around Ontario as a preacher’s son to his experiences in the First World War and his crusades to find a cure for tuberculosis and to promote health care in Canada. But Bethune is most famous for the time he spent fighting Fascism through his profession of healing in Spain and China during the late 1930s. His story inspires us to believe that we can change the world through our actions.

"Kill them all. God will know his own." These were the orders given to crusading Catholic knights before they stormed the walls of the heretic Cathar city of Beziers in 1209. The historic death toll was 10,000, and here author John Wilson imagines that among the carnage two childhood friends are forever affected. Peter assists the mysterious priest who leads the crusade; John, with the help of a heretic woman, barely escapes with his life. As the brutal war expands, Peter and John are caught up on opposite sides of the search for a secret that might change the world. When their paths cross later, both are fully committed to seeking the secret in their own ways — John in the exotic world of Muslim Spain and Peter at the center of Catholic power in Rome. Wilson richly evokes the tempestuous world of the Crusades, and two young men's place in it, in this heady mix of action, adventure, and intrigue.

In this compelling sequel to Weet, Eric, his sister Rose and their faithful dog Sally find themselves back in a familiar, albeit frightening, world. Weet, enlightened by what his time-travelling friends had taught him, feels a longing to discover what mysteries about his people lie beyond the terrifying Fire Mountain. Weet resolves to set off on an adventurous quest to uncover the truth. With the invaluable help of his friends from the distant future, Weet finds an ancient colony of ancestral beings oddly different from himself. A true hero, Weet uncovers his people's history and plots a course for a bright new future.

This novel by John Wilson, the sequel to The Flags of War, continues the adventures of two cousins, Walt and Nate McGregor, and of Sunday, the former slave on Nate's father's plantation. They have survived the carnage at Shiloh. But the war rages on. Nate returns to the family plantation to find it in ruins. In despair he turns back to the only life he knows -- the army. Meanwhile, Walt and Sunday re-enlist to fight for their beliefs, no matter how great the danger. The three young men meet again at the notorious Libby prison in Virginia: Nate as a guard, Sunday as a slave and Walt as a prisoner. Their grim reunion at Libby -- where prison walls divide them -- highlights the complexity of a war that tore a nation apart. Can the three battle-scarred soldiers hope for anything more than survival?

Fourteen-year-old Al is spending the summer on the shores of Ontario's James Bay with his eccentric archaeologist father. On their last day there, Al paddles his canoe awawy from the rocky, tree-lined shore and is strangely overtaken by a thickfog that disorients him. As the mist rolls over him, Al is startled to see a ship in the distance that he recognizes as the Discover, whose captain was the ill-fated Henry Hudson. Is it a ghostly apparition?

In A.D. 9, the Roman nobleman Publius Varus led three entire legions — 20,000 men — east of the Rhine to subdue a rebellion. The Teutonic forests, and the barbarian warriors they concealed, utterly destroyed the Roman army, leaving only a few desperate, ragged survivors to return to their ordered world of roads, towns, and open fields. Fast-forward to A.D. 79. An old man, Lucius Quintus Claudianus, has been abandoned in a villa outside Herculaneum. As the eruption of Vesuvius builds to its devastating climax, Lucius writes the story of his life — including the strange part he played 70 years earlier when the Roman legions, who considered themselves invincible, were caught and massacred. In Germania John Wilson tells the extraordinary story of the Battle of Teutoburg forest, the forces that preceded it, the vivid cast of characters (including Varus and the ruthless barbarian leader Arminius), and the terrible aftermath that saw the ascension of the barbarians, the decline of the Romans, and seven grim years of war. Wilson brings the wrenching immediacy of war to modern readers in this striking, colorful novel.

In the fall of 1669, the Nonsuch returns to London with a load of fur from Hudson Bay. It brings something else, too — the lost journal from Henry Hudson's ill-fated search for a passage to Cathay in 1611. The journal finds its way to the aged Robert Bylot and releases a flood of memories from his youth, some of them far from pleasant. As a young man, Bylot dreamed of becoming a famous explorer, and when his father died, he went to London where he faced the horrors of the plague — an epidemic that tragically claimed his sister. He then became the protégé of the notorious mathematician and magician John Dee. After learning navigation, he signed on with Henry Hudson on his doomed voyage. Dee also gave Bylot a secret assignment for the trip: to bring back the most powerful of alchemical secrets. Will the journal and the dark recollections they bring up finally allow Bylot the peace of mind that has eluded him all these years? John Wilson's deft interweaving of history, science, mysticism, and a hero's journey make this one of his most exciting narratives.

World War Two was the greatest conflict in human history. It gave birth to the Atomic Age, the Cold War and the economic boom of the 1950s and 60s, and planted the seeds of today’s Middle East crises. But it is not distant history. Most Canadians have relatives who were part of this world-wide tragedy. Bitter Ashes puts these events in context for them. This book in the illustrated historical series Stories of Canada is a companion to Desperate Glory: The Story of WWI. A clear and concise text leads the reader though the major military and political events and issues of the war. Sidebars add detail and a personal element. Every page is illustrated with either photographs or maps.