All Fall Down: The Landslide Diary of Abby Roberts is a fictional diary written by Jean Little for the Dear Canada series. The book is Little's fifth entry in the series. It was published in January 2014.
Dedication
- "This book is dedicated to Robert Heath, my computer doctor whose frequent house calls, endless patience and quick intelligence have saved the lives of book after book. It comes with my gratitude and deep affection."
Book description
- "Thursday night, April 30, 1903
We stayed there, frozen, not knowing what we were supposed to do. It felt like an hour but I suppose it was only minutes. I peered out but what I saw made no sense. The air was filling with dust—gritty dust that smelled of smoke. I blinked hard, but I could not see anything clearly in the darkness. Then Uncle Martin grabbed my shoulders and yanked me away from the door. It is still hard to even write this. Inside me, a voice kept saying, "He was right." And I knew "he" was Bird's grandfather. The mountain had walked, just as he had said it would. And it had walked right over our town."
Plot
Characters
- Main article: List of All Fall Down characters
Author
- Main article: Jean Little
Jean Little (born January 2, 1932 in Taiwan) is a writer of mainly historical fiction. She has written five Dear Canada books, namely Orphan at My Door, Brothers Far from Home, If I Die Before I Wake, and Exiles from the War. Little also contributed stories in A Season for Miracles, A Christmas to Remember, A Time for Giving, and Hoping for Home.
Acknowledgements
- "So many people helped make this story come to me. First I owe thanks to my Great-aunt Jen and her sister, my grandmother, Gret. If they had not gone west in 1889 and if Aunt Jen had not kept a diary, Abby would have never existed. My gratitude goes to my niece, Robin Little, who helped me with research. My thanks go out to Sandra Bogart Johnston, my editor, for all her work, but most of all for her suggesting I set my new Dear Canada book in Alberta and include the Frank Slide. As always, my deep gratitude goes to my sister Pat, who not only proofreads what I write, but tells me bits I should change or delete. She also persuades me to keep going every time I threaten to quit. Pat also came with me on a pilgrimage to Frank where I met Monica Field, the director of the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre. Monica read the manuscript and answered innumerable questions without complaining. Thanks to Monica and all the others in Frank and the Centre who were welcoming and generous with information. The staff at Guelph Public Library and those at the CNIB Library also found answers to my many questions and supplied me with helpful books. As usual, I owe deep gratitude, even though it is sometimes grudging, to Barbara Hehner, who spots my many grievous errors and points them out. I long to argue, but she is always right. I wish to thank Patsy Aldana and everyone else involved in my being given the Matt Cohen Award. The money paid for our trip to Frank and vastly enriched Abby's sense of place – she was not planning to mention the weather until I felt the wind at Frank almost blow me over. Also, even though my vision is very limited, I gazed up at Turtle Mountain and felt its menace and beauty in a way no book had fully conveyed. I found information on the Internet about Frank, but the two sources I turned to most often were: "The Frank Slide," by Frank Anderson, in Triumph and Tragedy in the Crowsnest Pass, ed. Diana Wilson; and Frank Slide by J. William Kerr."
- "The publisher wishes to thank Mr. R.L. Kennedy for providing information about the train schedule from Montreal to Frank; Barbara Hehner for her attention to the details; and Monica Field of the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre for sharing her encyclopedic knowledge of the Slide so generously. Thanks also to Dr. Bill Waiser for his expertise. Finally, thank you to Adria Lund and her team at the Glenbow Archives, who managed to provide images despite another disaster—the severe flooding in Calgary in July 2013."
References
See also
External links
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