Runaway

Brenda Baltensperger is a playwright, a director of children’s
theatre, an editor of children’s fiction, and the author of Fractured
Fairy-tales.

Marie Antoinette Sauve, or Toni as she prefers to be called, is
devastated when, at her Aunt Eloise’s suggestion and with her
mother’s consent, she is sent to a convent boarding school in
Bernardville, Saskatchewan. During the long train journey from Vancouver
to Saskatchewan, Toni finds herself already missing the mountains,
rivers, and trees of the B.C. coast.

The convent school is supposed to tame Toni’s wild nature and turn
her into a proper young lady. Because of her limited French, Toni has
difficulty understanding most of the other girls’ conversations and
some of the instructions from the nuns. Feeling suffocated, Toni breaks
the rules and ventures outside the convent grounds. She discovers a
badly beaten girl, about her own age, shivering in a derelict barn and
takes her back to the convent. She manages to persuade Mother Superior
to allow Jessica, the little runaway, to remain in the convent, safely
away from her abusive uncle.

In this story of a lonely girl’s attempts to adjust to a new and
hostile environment, the author provides insights into the strict
convent school life and the hardships of the Depression. Highly
recommended.