Paradise
Joan Elizabeth Goodman
Hardcover
(HMH Books for Young Readers, Aug. 26, 2002)
We were so far away from any life we’d known. I wondered if we’d gone beyond God’s reach. Perhaps He couldn’t hear us from this wild land.Next to the immense forest of eastern Canada lies the tiny wild Isle of Demons. In 1542 the young Marguerite, her maid, and her love are marooned on this island. At first, summer provides berries, greens, mushrooms, and rabbits and squirrels caught by snares. The exiles become increasingly resourceful, scavenging for food in the woods and on the shore, using every part of a slain deer—its blood for pudding, its bladder for a water bag, and its hide for clothing. They even build a home of sorts out of saplings and mud. But though it is little spoken of, Marguerite dreads the harsh northern winter to come. How will they ever survive it? Based on the true-life heroine Marguerite de La Rocque, Paradise is a gripping novel of adventure, courage, hardship, love, and survival.
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