Winding Trail Press - Little Downy

Little Downy

ISBN 0-9733632-0-7
104 pages
$12.95 Canadian
$9.95 U.S.

Since 1855, Catharine Parr Traill’s Little Downy: The Story of a Field Mouse, has been available only to adults who collect rare books. Now Ruth Bradley-St-Cyr, of Embrun Ontario, has restored the work to its rightful readers – children. Illustrated and broken into chapters, it now provides great reading for children 9 and up. Dealing with cruelty to animals as one of its themes, Little Downy tells of the many difficulties and enemies faced by its small but determined heroine. Little Downy is one of Traill’s best crafted children’s stories; Traill is one of Canada’s best authors.

The revisions included breaking the story into chapters (it was 12,000 words with no breaks), breaking up the sentences (Traill favoured semi-colons and one sentence paragraphs), and adding new illustrations.

As Traill wrote later, “Little Downy was a real mouse, and well I remember how I wrote its story. I used to sit under the great oak tree near where it lived, and watch the pretty creature’s frisky, frolicking ways, and write about it on my slate. When I had both sides covered, I ran into the house and transcribed what I had written in an old copy-book, then ran out again to watch the gentle dear and write some more.”

Catharine Parr Traill is one of Canada’s earliest writers and is best known for her works for adults – The Backwoods of Canada and The Canadian Settlers’ Guide. She was also very fond of writing stories for children, such as Canadian Crusoes.

Illustrator Eleanor Andrew is a graduate of the Biomedical Communications department at the University of Toronto and won the Darlington Award for illustration. She does most of her artwork digitally but also likes to draw and paint.

Editor Ruth Bradley-St-Cyr is a writer and a big fan of Catharine Parr Traill.

To order copies of Little Downy, please contact Canada Books Online.