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Us and Them A Novel
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$11.95Set in late-1920s Sydney Mines, Us & Them is the story of sixteen-year-old JW Donaldson, who interrupts his high school education to work in the coal mine to help support his family.
A fatal accident in the mine awakens JW to just how dangerous working conditions are and to how management seems to care more about production than about the men and boys who are the means of that production.
JW enlists the aid of union activist and local hero, JB McLachlan, and learns that even the young can be a positive voice for change.
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Trapper Boy
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$11.95Set in a 1920s coal-mining town, Trapper Boy is the story of 13-year-old JW Donaldson, a good student with a bright future. As school ended for the year in 1926, JW was looking forward to summer. Sure, he would have chores – feeding the horse and milking the goat, tending the garden, that kind of thing – but he would also have lots of time for fishing, building his cabin and reading. Lots of reading.But there is something worrying his parents. His father works in the mine, and there is a lot of talk around town about the mines. JW doesn’t know the details – Adults had a lot to worry about, and he was in no hurry to become one.Slowly, JW’s parents reveal the truth: his father’s hours at the mine have been reduced and they face difficult decisions to try to make ends meet. One such decision will have a previously unimagined impact on the young man’s life.
