Michel Blanchette

Little Canuck: the Adventures of an Immigrant Boy from Québec Michel Blanchette

Michel learns that his father is dying. This news precipitates a nostalgic journey into the past-a childhood spent on a dairy farm in French Québec. As a sensitive boy secluded from the world, Michel wavers between forbidden exploits and heartbreaking tribulations. Catholic school is a culture shock, but it's the huge pumpkin-shaped teacher with a bad temper who terrorizes his brain most. On the farm, his young life abounds with fun and danger-mad bulls, dynamite sticks, runaway darts, lethal ice cubes, and hazardous farm equipment. After struggling with a dismal economy, his family is forced to abandon their home. They desert their isolated farmhouse and move into a cockroach-infested apartment in an English-speaking city one mile from the seductive United States border. There, Michel copes with bullies, Russian spies, and ghosts. Little Canuck recounts the humorous, and at times, heartrending memoirs of a young boy on his journey through a colorful landscape of emotion. Along the way, young Michel uncovers the mysteries of female anatomy, and learns poignant truths about mortality. His most profound lessons are not learned at school.