Ti-Ti-Pu: A Boy of Red River

In 1813, a Scottish family crosses the Atlantic to claim their place in Lord Selkirk's remote frontier colony at Red River. Young Hector Macrae faces more than ocean storms and savage winters on this desperate journey. Within pages of leaving Scotland, he must defend his beloved dogs from a bear at York Factory, setting the tone for a boyhood spent battling the wilds of what will become Manitoba. Alongside his younger sister Ailie and the loyal pair Dour and Dandy, Hector navigates hostile terrain, hostile strangers, and the crushing weight of starting over in a land that does not welcome them. Oxley writes with the fierce tenderness of a man who knew that pioneer children grew up fast, if they grew up at all. This is adventure fiction that remembers how terrifying and magnificent the frontier seemed through a boy's eyes, before history turned its protagonists into footnotes. The danger is real. The stakes are survival. And Hector's courage makes you forget you're reading a century-old children's book.