Customer Reviews

Dear Canada: A Ribbon of Shining Steel: The Railway Diary of Kate Cameron

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A Ribbon of Shining Steel: The Railway Diary of Kate Cameron by Julie Lawson is another good addition to the exemplary Dear Canada historical fiction book series.

Kathleen Cameron, called Kate, lives in a scenic mountainside town of Yale, near a rushing river, and surrounded by the rocky mountain ranges. Kate constantly fears for her father, who is one of the top architects in the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway---the Camerons' whole reason for moving from Ottawa to Yale. Kate, a smart-talking, tomboyish girl, describes to her diary of the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the white workers' feuds with the Chinese workers, her many squabble with her friend Anne Swanson, watching countless railway workers rushed into the Accident Hospital, and, in the climax scene, Kate saving a young girl from the burning fire.

Julie Lawson has done a pretty good job narrating the story of the tenuous, slow construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway through the eyes of a girl's diary, though it seemed to me a little short, and less interesting than some of the other Dear Canada books. Other than that, fans of Dear Canada, or anyone else, will love A Ribbon of Shining Steel.

Highly recommended!

Kathleen Louise Cameron, or Kate, shares with her diary the hardships of life-friendship difficulties, deaths and injuries with the transcontinental railway being buit, and more. A very good book.