Carrie Turansky’s McAlister Family series highlights the difficulties faced by British Home Children, emigrated to Canada. The stories happen ten years apart. Each shows the children forcibly taken abroad, and the lengths their family went to, to reunite them.
Sensitively written, the stories of Katie, Garth and little Grace will tug your heart strings. Thankfully, Ms Turanksy is a master of the deft use of light to break up the harder parts. Laura’s battle to find her siblings and return them to England will make you, cheer and wipe away a tear.
No Ocean Too Wide
After their father dies tragically, their hires on with a seamstress to make ends meet, but after falling ill, the children are taken to an orphanage while their mother is in hospital. Laura rushes to collect them but isn’t allowed access and by the time she can see them, the children have left for a new life overseas, three of more than 100,000 wo were part of the scheme.
With the help of an aristocratic British lawyer Andrew Fraser, Laura sets out to right the wrong. What follows is a gut-wrenching tale of two families love. Laura manages some partial success by the end of the first book, No Ocean Too Wide. Then comes the First World War. Book two, No Journey Too Far, begins after hostilities are over.
No Journey Too Far
The second offering sees Garth return to Canada to find the girl he loves and to try and make contact with still missing Grace. As circumstances throw up roadblocks and legal battles, the likelihood of all the siblings being reunited seems slim. I won’t give away the stunning end to the McAlister Family series, but I will say, there’s one of the most moving scenes I’ve ever read, very near the end (it happens at a station). As a parent, this book took me to pieces and made me go hug my littles tight.
Beautifully done and highly recommended.
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