All Fall Down

All Fall Down
Book no.	34
Series	Dear Canada
Author	Jean Little
Publisher	Scholastic Canada
Published	January 1, 2014
Pages	174
ISBN	9781443119191
Setting	Frank, Alberta
Timeline	June 1902 – June 1903
Preceded by
Chronology	Orphan at My Door
Publication	A Country of Our Own
Followed by
Chronology	That Fatal Night
Publication	Flame and Ashes

All Fall Down: The Landslide Diary of Abby Roberts is the thirty-fourth in the Dear Canada series. The fictional diary was written by Jean Little; her fifth and final book for the series. It was published in January 2014 and was followed by Flame and Ashes by Janet McNaughton.

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."

Characters

Main article: List of All Fall Down characters

• Abby Roberts

Author

Main article: Jean Little

Jean Little was a Canadian writer whom wrote her first children's novel in 1962. She was an adjunct professor at University of Guelph, where she taught children's literature. Little wrote five Dear Canada books, namely Orphan at My Door, Brothers Far from Home, If I Die Before I Wake, and Exiles from the War.

Editions

All Fall Down
Dear Canada eBook
B078H8VQBT
(January 2014)

Awards

• Best Books for Kids and Teens, Canadian Children's Book Centre (2014) - commended
• Resource Links, Best of the Year (2014) - commended
• Hackmatack Children's Choice Award (2015) - short-listed
• Rocky Mountain Book Award, Alberta Children's Choice (2015) - short-listed

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."

Notes

• The portrait on the cover was licensed from Samuel Schiff Co., New York. The background is a photograph labelled View of Frank, Alberta after the slide from the Glenbow Archives.

External links

• All Fall Down at Scholastic Canada
• All Fall Down Discussion Guide at Scholastic Canada
• All Fall Down at Teaching Books