By Colorado Kids Advisory Board member Sara LeFevre

Title: The Foreign Field
Author: Gillian Chan
Publisher: Kids Can Press
Number of Pages: 192

The setting is in Canada, though the book doesn’t tell exactly where. The main characters are Ellen Logan, Stephen Dearborn, and Ellen’s friends, Barb and Deanna. The beginning is pretty attention-grabbing, when Stephen almost kills Ellen’s brother, Colin. At first the book describes how most of the family responsibilities were dumped on Ellen, including looking after Colin, who is very mischievous. Ellen meets Stephen, who almost kills Colin with an airplane, when Colin was running across the runway with his friends. Patsy Grant, who is Ellen’s rival at school, thinks that Stephen is Ellen’s boyfriend, when he visits her house every day. Ellen ends up taking Stephen to Market Day, and she begins to think he is quite a nuisance.

At this point in the book Stephen is writing a lot of letters to his mom, Dorrie (his sister), and Ron (his brother-in-law) describing the Logans and asking what he should do to thank them for their hospitality. Well, it’s nearing Christmas and Stephen asks Ellen to a dance being held at his camp. She goes in a thin cotton dress which was sent to her only a few months ago and Roger (Stephen’s friend) asks Barb to the dance. At this point, the book gets a little boring. Stephen starts falling in love with Ellen. Well, it is almost time for Stephen to leave Canada. Lowther is killed in a plane crash, and Stephen gets really depressed. Stephen is promoted to the rank of sergeant, so he takes Ellen on a shopping excursion. He buys her a present. It’s hard to tell you about the book without giving away the ending. The rest of the book is writing letters anyway.

So, I’ll conclude by saying that a similar book you can check out is The Diary of Anne Frank.

I would recommend this book to teenagers because it includes a lot of good values. My favor ite part of this book was when it talked about Colin’s mischief. My least favorite part of the book was when they wrote letters. (December, 2002)