Charlie Wilcox
Sharon McKay
$8.99
240 pages | ISBN 0143014706 | Feb 2003 | Penguin Canada
Charlie Wilcox, a Newfoundlander, is interested in one thing only: going to sea, just like his father and uncles. He'll make his family proud. His parents have different plans for him, however: they want him to go to university.
Humiliated, Charlie sets out to prove he can measure up to the men in his family, and stows away on a sealing ship. It's only when they are far out to sea, and he is discovered, that he realizes he's on a troopship bound for France!
Alone in Europe, he manages as best he can. He finds a regiment of fellow Newfoundlanders, and because he's too young to fight he works as a stretcher bearer instead. The trenches along the front lines of the Somme are no place for anyone, but especially for a kid, and it's very hard not to be afraid. Especially on the morning of July 1, 1916, when Charlie's friends are ordered out of their trenches and over the top, and the German guns are waiting for them...
Reviews for Charlie Wilcox
"McKay depicts small town Newfoundland with humor and verve, catching us instantly with her straight-speaking characters and their long standing knowledge of each other."—Toronto Star
"Sharon McKay does indeed spin a good yarn, from the beautiful outport of Brigus to the trenches of the Somme."—National Post
"McKay's prose is scintillating and she's at her best when describing the fighting-you can almost hear the deafening shelling, smell the mucky odor of the trenches, see the blinding flash of the guns, hear the ping, ping of the snipers' post-battle bullets."—Hamilton Spectator
"An absolutely great book. It is one of the best adventurer stories to come out of Newfoundland, and it will become a classic."—The Telegram, St. John's
