Young Adult Fiction Prejudice & Racism
Shovels not Rifles
A Novel
- Publisher
- Formac Publishing Company Limited
- Initial publish date
- Aug 2023
- Category
- Prejudice & Racism, Prejudice & Racism, General, Canada, Military & Wars, War & Military, General
- Recommended Age
- 13 to 18
- Recommended Grade
- 7 to 12
- Recommended Reading age
- 13 to 18
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781459506053
- Publish Date
- Aug 2023
- List Price
- $19.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781459506060
- Publish Date
- Aug 2023
- List Price
- $12.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
Shovels Not Rifles is the story of Will, a young Black man from a small Nova Scotia town who enlists and goes to war in the historical Black Battalion in 1916.
When Coloured men are finally allowed to enlist in the Canadian military, Will Coleman has a chance to make his late father proud, see the world and earn enough money to take care of his mother. Immediately after joining the No. 2 Construction Battalion, he learns that the members of Canada’s only all-Black battalion are not allowed to fight on the front lines. Instead, they are assigned the same forestry work they were doing at home. Not only that, Will is the target of racism and discrimination by superiors and many fellow soldiers who refuse to accept a “checkerboard army”.
Alongside his fellow soldiers in the No. 2 Construction Battalion, Will slowly faces the harsh realities of the war -- and the country he wanted to fight for.
About the author
Gloria Ann Wesley is an African Nova Scotian writer who published her first book of poetry, To My Someday Child in 1975. She later published Woman, Sing (2002) and Burlap and Lace (2007). Her first young adult fiction, Chasing Freedom, was published in 2011.
Wesley’s poetry appears in three Canadian anthologies: Canada in Us Now (Harold Head, 1976), Other Voices: Writings by Blacks in Canada (Lorris Elliott, 1985) and Fire on the Water (George Elliott Clarke, 1992). Gloria Wesley holds the distinction of being the first published Black Nova Scotian poet (by Resolution of the Nova Scotia Legislature, 5 April 2007).
