The Way Lies North by Jean Rae Baxter

For ages 9+. This young adult historical novel focuses on Charlotte and her family, Loyalists who are forced to flee their home in the Mohawk Valley as a result of the violence of the “Sons of Freedom” during the American Revolution. At the beginning, fifteen-year-old Charlotte Hooper is separated from her sweetheart, Nick, who sympathises with the Rebels. The war has already taken the lives of her three brothers, and it is with a sense of desperation that Charlotte and her parents begin the long trek north to the safety of Fort Carleton. Along the way they are joined by other Loyalists who have been burnt out. The novel portrays Charlotte’s struggle on the difficult journey north, and the even more difficult task of making a new home in British Canada. In her relationship with Nick, the novel explores the complexity of the ideals of the American revolution and how these ideals were undermined by a revolutionary ethos of violence and manifest destiny.

In the flight north, the Mohawk nation plays an important role, and Charlotte learns much about their customs and way of life, to the point where she is renamed “Woman of Two Worlds”. Later in the novel she is able to repay her Native friends when she plays an important part in helping the Oneidas, who originally sided with the Americans, to become members of the Iroquois confederacy under British protection.

The story of Charlottes journey north is a tale of paradise lost and a new world gained. It is also the love story of Charlotte and Nick and their reconciliation of political differences. The title reflects both the family’s quest to find a new home and also Charlotte’s personal growth through the novel. Strong and capable, Charlotte breaks the stereotype of the 18th-century female. The relationship between the Loyalists and the natives is developed in such a positive light that this novel has the potential to be an effective teaching tool. But it is not purely history. The fictional element makes this book a great read for anyone.