Izzie, Book 4: Homecoming.

Alison Mews is co-ordinator of the Centre for Instructional Services at
Memorial University of Newfoundland.

This last book about Izzie in the Our Canadian Girl series sees her return full circle to her home in rural Nova Scotia. She is now 14 and three years have lapsed since her story began in 1942. These have been exciting years, in which she had to adjust to her father’s absence, their move to Dartmouth, and her mother working. She and her new friends also coped with the fears prevalent at the time: that they would fall victim to polio or lose their loved ones to the war. Now talks of peace mean she must face the imminent return of her injured father as well as the reluctant return of her friend Patricia to an uncertain future in England.

Budge Wilson provides age-appropriate insight into the thoughts and anxieties of children whose lives have been disrupted by the war. She chronicles the tumultuous end-of-war events by having Izzie experience first-hand the VE Day celebrations in Halifax that disintegrated into riots, and the truly joyful arrival of the soldiers in the Halifax harbour some months later. The emotional connections are believably handled and the historical period authentically brought to life. Izzie’s father does return relatively unscathed (with just deafness in one ear) and her friends’ problems are tidied up neatly, as the end of the war deftly dovetails with the end of Izzie’s story. Recommended.