The Girl on Evangeline Beach

Fitzhenry & Whiteside 2000

School Library Journal 2001

Themes: Acadian Deportation, 1755, New World

REVIEW

While lying in a coma after being beaten by two thugs, Michael Denshaw, 16, time travels to Grand-Pr‚ Nova Scotia, in 1755, just months before the deportation of the Acadians. There he finds Marie, who had appeared to him as a ghost when he and his grandfather visited nearby Evangeline Beach, and learns that his mission is to save Marie from the same thugs who attacked him. … He gains maturity and falls in love with Marie, who disappoints him by choosing Francois . . . When the young woman’s father leaves with a delegation to plead the Acadians’ cause to the English in Halifax, Michael knows that its members will not return. The protective attitude he then begins to take toward Marie’s entire family, knowing their community’s tragic fate, helps him not only to find the way to save Marie and Fran‡ois but also to begin to accept his own father’s death four years earlier. Carter’s detailed, knowledgeable portrayal of Acadian life makes . . .  this book a fine historical novel.