This adventurous story follows a young boy who is going on his first voyage in place of his father. He encounters many hardships such as the physical toll being a voyageur has on your body and mind, mean crew mates, and grief. But he also grows and finds out more about himself than he ever thought possible along the way. Join Pierre for the journey of a lifetime.

My youngest is reading this for her school, so I figured why not? It’s not too long and I’m descended from voyageurs myself. I should find out what my legacy is.

The Broken Blade is meant to be a historical fiction/educational book in the same sense of Across Five Aprils. Our lead, Pierre, feels guilty for an accident that made his father resign from the yearly “march of the voyageurs” that brought them their livelihood. So he conscripts himself into their ranks and learns what its like paddling from Montreal to west Lake Superior. The heartache, the danger, the camaraderie, the enemies and friends made.

It’s a very clear Coming of Age story–the transition of the boy to a man. As you imagine, the female parts are extremely underwritten. I feel like some of the material was sanitized for younger readers. There is drinking and fighting, but no swearing or sex talk. I probably won’t read the following books in the series, but I’m glad I read this as it gave me a better understanding of the French-Canadian explorers and pioneers. ( )

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An engaging YA novel I would have enjoyed reading aloud to my boys when they were growing up. (We did a lot of historical read-alouds together in our home school.) I read it because I wanted to see how the author handled some of the era's historical detail, as my WIP follows the same route of the voyageurs from Montreal to Fort William. It was a good coming of age story fraught with adventure and some tragedy of the sort that was common among the voyageurs. I would really recommend adding this to your book list if you're a teacher or homeschooler wishing to share some of the is fur-trade era history with your students. ( )

My nephew loaned me this book because he really loves it. I can see why. It's full of action, has great characters, lots of action, a good amount of history, and lots of action. Did I mention the action? It's pretty great. ( )