The Way Lies North

This young adult historical novel focuses on Charlotte and her family, Loyalists who are forced to flee their home in the Mohawk Valley as a result of the violence of the 'Sons of Liberty' during the American Revolution. At the beginning, fifteen-year-old Charlotte Hooper and her parents begin the long trek north to the safety of Fort Haldimand (near present-day Kingston). The novel portrays Charlotte's struggle on the difficult journey north, and the even more difficult task of making a new home in British Canada. In the flight north, the Mohawk nation plays an important role, and Charlotte learns much about their customs and way of life, to the point where she is renamed 'Woman of Two Worlds.' Later in the novel she is able to repay her aboriginal friends when she plays an important part in helping the Oneidas to become once again members of the Iroquois confederacy under British protection. Strong and capable, Charlotte breaks the stereotype of the eighteenth-century woman, while revealing a positive relationship between the Loyalists and aboriginal peoples.