This segment of the website introduces the reader to a variety of recommended reading material, all in reference to the French Acadian people.

FIDDLES AND SPOONS

This children's book (ages 9 to 12) tells the story of the Acadian deportation through the eyes of a mouse family.

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GRAND PRE: HEART OF ACADIE

This well-illustrated book examines the history of Grand Pré, the most cherished of all Acadian settlements, from the 1680s to 1755. Authors John Johnston and Wayne Kerr bring the thriving village to life, and put into perspective the defining episode in its history, and in the history of the Acadian people as a whole: the tragic Deportation that was carried out across the entire Maritime region beginning in 1755.

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EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's classic poem Evangeline follows the odyssey of a people - the Acadians, forcibly deported from Nova Scotia in 1755 - and immortalizes Acadia as the Land of Evangeline. This is the haunting love story of Evangeline and Gabriel, devoted from childhood, who are separated during the expulsion of the Acadians from Grand Pré and their lifelong search for one another.

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A LAND OF DISCORD ALWAYS: ACADIA FROM ITS BEGINNINGSTO THE EXPULSION OF ITS PEOPLE, 1604 TO 1755

The history of Acadia up to the time of the Grand Dérangement, written by Charles Mahaffie. It tells how a unique society grew and prospered in an obscure corner of North America only to be crushed in a contest between eighteenth-century imperial superpowers. Peopled with memorable men and women whose exploits make fascinating reading, it is a narrative filled with the bravery and cowardice, the foresight and foolishness, and the design and happenstance that determined Acadia's turbulent history.

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PELAGIE: THE RETURN TO ACADIE

Pélagie is the funny, lyrical tale of how a valiant Acadian widow leads her people out of exile. In 1755, British soldies had forced them off their land and transported them as far away as possible. Now the scattered Cormiers and LeBlancs, Landrys and Poiriers, Maillets and Légers find their way to Pélagie's oxcart caravan. As well as the remains of her own family, Pélagie embraces a runaway slave, a gruff midwife, a giant, a fool, and a hundred year old patriarch who strikes a daring bargain with Death. Through fair weather and foul, amid hostile Americans and Natives, over mountains and rivers, and strengthened by the love of the bold sea captain Beausoleil, Pélagie commands a ten year odyssey up the Atlantic coast from Georgia to Acadia.

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THE ACADIAN: JACQUES

This is a true account of a brave young orphan from Paris, France. Eager to get away from the oppressive orphanage, thirteen year old Jacques enlisted in the French army for duty in the remote outpost of Port Royal, Acadie, in what is now called Nova Scotia. He befriended a Micmac Indian scout, named Paul, who taught him survival techniques. Following the capture of Port Royal by the British in 1710, the victors could not believe the horrible condition of the survivors of that battle as they emerged from the fort; of the three hundred soldiers on duty when the fort fell, one hundred were boys from twelve to sixteen years of age, all from orphanages. Refusing to sign an oath of allegiance to the Crown of England, the French soldiers and their Micmac Indian allies, were ruthlessly persecuted, culminating in the expulsion of the French Acadians who were forced aboard British ships and transported to the colonies where families were split, never to see each other again. Jacques was placed aboard the British sailing ship The Experiment consigned to New York. A journey that should have taken no more than two weeks lasted five months, after the ship was damaged in a storm at sea.

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