Books with author Patricia Robinson

Eleven-year-old Allister McRuer's fears materialize when he and his family arrive at their Manitoba pioneer homestead in 1892. What could make it worse? Being called Allis. During the trip from Lachute, Quebec to Cherry Creek, Manitoba, Allister shares a train boxcar with three of his brothers and all of their family's livestock. The closer he gets to the homestead his father and oldest brother, John, started three years ago, the worse Allister's misery gets as older brother, Will, torments Allister by calling him "Allis," a name he hates because it sounds like "Alice." Allister's first hour in Cherry Creek does little to ease his concerns. While their brothers unload the McRuers' two boxcars, Allister and his twin brother, Jim, explore the town. Allister is discouraged at the small size of the local school, wondering how he will ever finish grade eight. As they continue walking, Allister and Jim witness a terrible accident. Although they're able to help a horse and an injured driver, Allister's anxiety over his family's move to the prairies takes a new turn when he's told that the only doctor within seventy miles is out of town on another call. Who can he get to help them?

Satisfied with a Grade 8 education? Not fourteen-year-old Allister McRuer. The first step to realizing his dreams requires high school, but will his father ever allow him to leave the farm and live in town to attend? Allister's one thread of hope for more education involves waiting for their one-room school to get a teacher with a high school diploma, and then persuading that teacher to help him study Grade 9. However, when fire spreads from Turtle Mountain towards the McRuers' farm and the school, Allister must work quickly to prevent this hope from disappearing into ashes. In the midst of his fight for an education, Allister meets Sam Pollack in the fall of 1896, an itinerant worker from Ontario who comes to the farm. He asks Allister a pointed question: "What do you want to do with your life?" Will answering truthfully change anything? And if he ever gets his wish to attend high school in Cherry Creek, what name should he ask his classmates and teachers to call him by? Certainly not Allister!

Twelve-year-old Allister McRuer can't wait to attend the brand new, one-room schoolhouse that he, his father, and brothers helped to build on a corner of his family's pioneer homestead in southwestern Manitoba. There was no school within walking distance when Allister and his family first arrived in May of 1892. More than a year has passed, and Allister worries that he has forgotten everything he learned at his school in eastern Canada. Will he and his twin brother, Jim, ever be able to catch up? Allister's excitement quickly turns to frustration. His new teacher doesn't seem to know how to handle sixteen children in Grades 1 through 8. What chaos! And his father continually pulls Allister and Jim out of school to help with the harvest or to build on their older brothers' homestead claims. How are he and Jim going to pass any grade?

A Marsh Guide brings a lame child to the settlement. She insists the girl be adopted by the wife of the Chief and brought up as her own. When this is refused, a curse is put on the sons of the Chief and they die upon reaching puberty. The people of the settlement make an annual trek to escape the harsh winter and stay by the lake to celebrate the Midwinter Solstice. During the festivities the Shaman blesses them, giving hope the curse will be lifted, but an unseen danger lurks, one that will take many lives.Pat Robinson was inspired to write 'The Shaman’s Blessing' during a trip to the Norwegian fjords. The magical scenery and midwinter colours sparked a memory of earlier journeys where she visited the Sounds (Fjords) of New Zealand. Pat found that both landscapes evoked a deep love of our Earth, as well as fuelling the imagination with elements of pure fantasy.

When a group of black skinned girls get taken off their islands with the promise of greener pastures and the allure of better life out in the modern world by a Pastor whom they had trusted for years, little would they know how their lives were about to be altered forever. In a mix of deception, betrayal, loyalty and revenge, follow Sheila in her ordeal to find penance not just for herself, but for her fallen sisters when they become victims of a vicious circle of slave traders who would stop at nothing to make sure they got paid. Will she come out atop or become a victim crying for justice like the millions whom had gone before her? What will become of Sheila when she is left for dead after the most inhumane acts one can ever come to imagine, were perpetrated on her? Resistance goes a long way into showing you just what the human mind is capable of and how karma is always a swing away as it lies in the shadows.