Meg Gallant and her
best friend, Nève, are competing in the Acadian Star talent competition, the
biggest thing that’s ever happened in their small Cape Breton town. If the
girls perform well enough, they might even make it to the finals in Halifax.
But Meg’s weird old
aunt, Tante Perle, has been acting stranger and stranger – and just before the
finale of the competition, she whisks Meg away from everything she knows. Meg
is suddenly trapped in the time of the tragic Acadian Deportation, and she has
to choose between escaping back to her own time and saving a girl who looks
remarkably like Nève. Why is she trapped in the eighteenth century? Will she be
able to save this stranger, so much like her best friend? Is true friendship
really enough to change history?
Meg Gallant is a young girl living in Picasse Bay, a
small Acadian town near the ocean. Big things are happening in town as an
American Idol type talent show, called Acadian Star, is holding auditions to
find young Acadian talent to compete in a bigger show in Halifax.
Meg is in an act together with her best friend and cousin
Nève Gallant. All is not well, however, when Meg finds out that Nève’s father
might not be able to find local work after the lobster season is over and the
family will have to move to Fort McMurray, Alberta. This move would take Nève
and her family all the way across the country (Picasse Bay is a fictional town,
but it is meant to be in Cape Breton). This information certainly puts a damper
on things, then Meg’s mood worsens even further as she accidentally angers Nève
and then agrees to bring her Tante Perle to come see the Acadian Star
auditions.
Tante Perle is Meg’s great aunt and has lived in Picasse
Bay all her life. She’s fairly well-known around town for being a little off
her rocker, talking about dolphins being in the bay and it being the sign of
approaching ships.
Tante Perle seems even more agitated than usual when Meg
arrives to pick her up. Instead of getting ready to go to the auditions, Tante
Perle locks Meg in her cellar and sends her nearly 300 years back in time to
the Acadian Deportation. Meg finds herself stuck in 1755 (or thereabouts) and
finds out that she has a job to do. It turns out that Tante Perle has sent her back
to be with her ancestors and to keep the family together when they’re put on
the ships to be sent away. As a bonus, managing this will also keep her cousin
Nève from moving away to Alberta.
Meg starts out not wanting to help, but she finds herself
getting closer with the Galland family (her ancestors in the 1700s) and
realizes that she can’t let them down. But her task isn’t as easy as it sounds.
There are British soldiers all over the small Acadian village and keeping
families together is not a priority of theirs and they’re hardly going to be
taking any suggestions from a little girl.
Meg has to find a way to keep the Galland family from
separating in the past so that it can remain together in the present.
Acadian Star is
a fun novel, and a pretty quick read.
Things start out a bit slow; Meg’s interactions with her
family and friends aren’t really all that exciting, although Tante Perle is
pretty fun. Nève’s subplot about moving to Alberta brings in some drama, and
the Acadian Star competition seems to just be there to give the characters
something to do; but the story doesn’t really start to get going until Meg gets
sent back in time.
Things pick up right away as soon as Meg lands in 1755,
especially because she lands right in the middle of the action at first. Meg
initially describes the situation as a nightmare, and it really is. Even when
nothing much is happening there is still this sense of foreboding hanging over
everything because both the reader and Meg know that something really bad is happening,
but the Galland family have no idea of what’s really coming.
I don’t think that knowledge of the Acadian Deportation
is needed to enjoy this book. The book doesn’t go into much detail about it,
but it says enough to give a sense of what’s happening. There’s a lot of
talking about the English ships taking the Acadians far away from their home;
and that’s all you really need to know when you read this book. Obviously
there’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s the part that Acadian Star really focuses on.
The themes of friendship and family are really strong in
this book. Meg and Nève are cousins and best friends, and have been for pretty
much their entire lives. They’re almost like sisters, so it’s really
distressing when they find out that they’re going to be separated. Meg makes
similar connections to her ancestors when she goes back in time. These people
are strangers to her but they’re still technically family and Meg wants to do
right by them. She starts out by helping them because of obligation, but by the
end she wants to help these people because they are her family and she has
developed a strong bond with them, and they with her.
One thing I’ll say about the time travelling in this
book, that I really like, is that when Meg first lands in 1755 she is confused
(understandably) but doesn’t spend any time trying to convince people that she
is from the future. She quickly realizes what’s going on and then gets on with
things. It doesn’t matter that she’s actually from the future because that
won’t change anything. She then becomes more concerned with trying to figure
out how to get the Galland family to understand what’s going on around them
without explicitly giving everything away. Also there aren’t any pop-culture
references while she’s in the past to confuse people for laughs.
Another thing I really liked about this book is that this
is more or less the first book I’ve ever read (and I was in my late teens when
I first read this) where the main character is a girl like me. I sometimes hear
people complaining about never having a book or movie made about them. I
honestly don’t care about seeing myself in movie/book characters, but I have to
admit that it was nice to see myself in a work of fiction. I could’ve been a
lot like Meg when I was her age (though probably a little shyer), a young girl
with a best friend living in a small community with a close extended family.
Picasse Bay reminded me of the communities where my parents grew up, and Meg’s
family reminded me of my family. True, I don’t have a Tante Perle, but I do
have aunts, cousins, and grandparents that can be very silly and go on about
things and tell stories about the past. They also switch between English and
French when they’re talking, which I have never seen in any other books (that I
can think of at the moment), so that was nice to see for once. All this to say
that Acadian Star reminds me of home.
I definitely recommend this book. Even if you aren’t from
a small town/French/Acadian you still might get some enjoyment out of the time
travel adventure, which is both exciting and suspenseful. There is no romantic
subplot at all, just straight friendship and deep family ties. Also the main
character is a preteen girl (with no superpowers, or emotional baggage, or
anything to prove) who goes on a dangerous adventure and saves the day, which
is different.
