• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

Short-listed for the 2004 CLA Book of the Year for Children Award, for the 2005 Diamond Willow Award and for the 2005 Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award
On the shores of Bedford Basin in Halifax, 12-year-old Selina Palmer is growing up in the community of Africville in the 1960s. Struggling with what it means to be the only black student in her Grade 6 class, Selina takes comfort in the fact that every day she goes home to a loving and vibrant neighbourhood, where friends and family accept her as she is. But ugly rumours are starting to surface about the fate of Africville…

Dorothy Perkyns was a teacher in England before coming to Canada in 1969. She began writing in the early seventies, contributing many articles to Canadian magazines and broadcasting regularly on CBC Radio. Her work was also published in the United States and in England.

Her first book, The Mystery of the Hemlock Ravine, appeared in 1986, followed by Bilson Award winner Rachel’s Revolution (1988), Peril at Plover Point (1991) and Signal Across the Sea (1994). All are available from Lancelot Press.

The author’s idea for this novel came from learning of a significant mastodon discovery made in Nova Scotia in the fall of 1991.

Dorothy Perkyns' profile page

• Short-listed, Diamond Willow Award
• Short-listed, Hackmatack Children's Choice Book Award
• Short-listed, CLA Book of the Year for Children Award