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2005
finalists.

2005 Hackmatack

Children's Choice Book Award/Prix littéraire - le choix de jeunes

On the shores of Bedford Basin in Halifax, twelve-year-old Selina Palmer is growing up in the community of Africville in 1965. Although they don't have the same amenities as the rest of the city, the brightly coloured houses scattered beside the sea are home to a tight-knit group of African Canadians who have been anchored by the little white church for over a hundred years. Selina lives there happily with her parents and grandmother.

Struggling with what it means to be the only black student in her grade six class, Selina takes comfort in the fact that every day she goes home to a loving and vibrant neighbourhood, where friends and family accept her as she is. But ugly rumours are starting to surface about the fate of Africville. When city authorities appear and families begin to move from the area, these fears become real. Just as Selina is coming to understand her place in the world, will the only home she knows be taken away?

Dorothy Perkyns is the author of several previous young adult novels, including The Mystery of the Hemlock Ravine, Peril at Plover Point, Signal Across the Sea, and The Mastodon Mystery (all with Lancelot Press). Her children's novel Rachel's Revolution (Lancelot) won the Geoffrey Bilson Award in 1989. She lives in Blandford, Nova Scotia.

Thematic Links

• Africville, Halifax
• Black culture and history
• History of Halifax
• Cities and housing
• Family and community ties
• Integration
• Multiculturalism
• Racism, prejudice

Suggested Activities

• Discuss the different attitudes shown towards Selina and her family by each character in the story.
• Try to imagine how you would feel if you were forced from your home and it was destroyed. Discuss your reactions.
• Describe and illustrate an important event or festival you celebrate in your home. What aspects are similar or different to Selina's Easter celebration?
• Interview someone who was your age in the 1960's. Prepare your questions in advance and try to tape-record your interview. Find out what it was like in your community then.