Bücher der Reihe Allister of Turtle Mountain

Twelve-year-old Allister McRuer can't wait to attend the brand new, one-room schoolhouse that he, his father, and brothers helped to build on a corner of his family's pioneer homestead in southwestern Manitoba.There was no school within walking distance when Allister and his family first arrived in May of 1892. More than a year has passed, and Allister worries that he has forgotten everything he learned at his school in eastern Canada. Will he and his twin brother, Jim, ever be able to catch up?Allister's excitement quickly turns to frustration. His new teacher doesn't seem to know how to handle sixteen children in Grades 1 through 8. What chaos! And his father continually pulls Allister and Jim out of school to help with the harvest or to build on their older brothers' homestead claims. How are he and Jim going to pass any grade?

Satisfied with a Grade 8 education? Not fourteen-year-old Allister McRuer. The first step to realizing his dreams requires high school, but will his father ever allow him to leave the farm and live in town to attend? Allister's one thread of hope for more education involves waiting for their one-room school to get a teacher with a high school diploma, and then persuading that teacher to help him study Grade 9. However, when fire spreads from Turtle Mountain towards the McRuers' farm and the school, Allister must work quickly to prevent this hope from disappearing into ashes.In the midst of his fight for an education, Allister meets Sam Pollack in the fall of 1896, an itinerant worker from Ontario who comes to the farm. He asks Allister a pointed question: "What do you want to do with your life?" Will answering truthfully change anything? And if he ever gets his wish to attend high school in Cherry Creek, what name should he ask his classmates and teachers to call him by? Certainly not Allister!