Make or Break Spring

Sheree Haughian, a former teacher-librarian with the Dufferin County
Board of Education, is an editor with Gage Educational Publishing and
the author of The Private Journal of Day Applepenny, Prisoner.

Three years have passed since Evelyn McCallum dealt with family
tribulations in wartime St. John’s in Catch Me Once, Catch Me Twice.
It is the spring of 1945. Allied victory in Europe is expected to be
announced any day, but Evelyn has little to celebrate. Her father has
long been missing in action overseas, and her mother is becoming all too
close to generous Doctor Thorne. The 15-year-old is stretched to the
breaking point by family worries, coupled with social and academic
obligations. Even relations with her best friend, Peter, and with her
precocious little brother, Ian, are often prickly and tense. What will
bloom for Evelyn at the end of spring?

McNaughton’s heroine is no cardboard character cast into a colorful
wartime backdrop. She is scholarly and rather dowdy, old-fashioned even
by the standards of the day. Her adoration of her brother, a child who
has been spared the rod with typical results, often seems a trifle odd
and misplaced. Yet, this novel is as warmly inviting as gingerbread and
cocoa with grandmother. It is easy to be drawn to the simple novelty of
young people striving for knowledge and scholarship, the sensitive use
of regional dialect, and the realistic portrayal of ordinary people
doing their best to cope in difficult times. Readers craving flash and
dash will pass over this book, opting for trendier issues or historical
fiction detailing bloodier battles. Those with subtler taste will note
the depth of characterization and the distinguished way in which writing
manages to express the internal conflicts of the heart. Highly
recommended.