The Hollow Tree

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

It is 1775, and 13-year-old Phoebe Olcott is living in the tiny
wilderness settlement of Hanover, New Hampshire, as her country heads
into a revolutionary war that will take her through incredible hardships
and adventures, and show her the value of loyalty. In this beautifully
written adventure-story-cum-romance, Phoebe travels through more than
100 miles of wilderness terrain. Her goal is to deliver a coded message
to the British general at Fort St. John. Through her quest Phoebe will
come to realize that she is no longer the timid “mouse” of her
hamlet, but rather “a complete person.”

This third volume in the series that began with The Root Cellar and
Shadow in Hawthorne Bay brilliantly captures the texture of daily life
in a pioneer settlement and on a wilderness trail. Award-winning author
Janet Lunn’s prose is invigorating and evocative, as exemplified by
her description of the once-blue gown given to Phoebe after she arrives
at Fort St. John: “[It] had been washed so often it was now the soft
blue-grey color of a nuthatch’s wing. It smelled of the wild thyme it
had been laid away in.”

The Hollow Tree is historical fiction at its best, full of tenderness,
humor, heartbreak, and wisdom. Highly recommended.