The Tenth Pupil

This novel is set in a small logging camp on Vancouver Island, Canada, in 1934. Eleven-year-old Trudy Paige enjoys her life in Mellor's Camp. She has a loving family, a shaggy dog, friends, a swimming hole, a fishing stream, books to read, wild animals to lend a touch of danger, and a friend in Vancouver to visit. She especially enjoys school, until the government threatens to close the school because there are only nine children, and ten are legally required if the government is to fund the school. delighted, but other people in the camp are not pleased, and Trudy discovers a dark side to life. Over the school year, she witnesses several incidents of prejudice against the Japanese, including a frightening riot in Little Tokyo in Vancouver. Trudy is faced with a dilemma: should she succumb to the prejudice in the camp in order to fit in or should she defy them all and continue to be Shigi's friend. just at the time when railway logging was giving way to truck logging, and when children were still used to beat out the sparks from locomotives. Horne offers an insightful account of racism in the pre-WW II period, but does so while giving both the Japanese and Euro-Canadian point of view.