Flight

Darleen R. Golke is a high-school teacher and librarian in Winnipeg.

Set against the background of the American Revolution, Flight chronicles
the trials and dangers faced by the Loyalist Waltermyer family during
the years, 1777-1783. George Waltermyer, twelve years old when the story
begins, assumes responsibility for his mother and six siblings when his
father, Hans, departs their Albany, New York, farm to become a courier
for the British forces. The family, forced from the rented farm by the
rebels, must seek shelter first with the senior Waltermyers, and later
with other Loyalist families in New York City.

George vacillates between anger at his father for abandoning the family
and upsetting their lives, and admiration for Hans, who, although
reluctant to take sides in the war, becomes one of the leading couriers
for the British, high on the rebels’ most-wanted list.

Crook, a descendant of the family on whose story this novel is based
and an active member of the United Empire Loyalists’ Association,
depicts the revolutionaries as cruel and barbaric in their treatment of
Loyalists. Common methods of dealing with Loyalists in revolutionary
America included confiscation of property, eviction from homes and land,
hanging, tarring and feathering, and other persecution. Pressured by Sir
Guy Carleton, the British general in charge of the Loyalist stronghold
in New York City, General Washington reluctantly allowed the Waltermyers
(renamed the John Walter Myer family), along with more than thirty
thousand other Loyalists, to depart for resettlement in Upper Canada.

Flight will appeal to young-adult readers interested in Canada’s
history: this long, fictionalized account of George Myer’s coming of
age during the Revolutionary War teems with anger at the rebels’
treatment of people loyal to the British. Crook spares little sympathy
for the rebels’ ideology, but applauds the determination and courage
of all who remained loyal to “family, King, and God.”