Snow Apples

While the rest of the world celebrates the end of World War II, sixteen-year-old Sheila Brary finds life in a remote British Columbia outport suffocating and isolating. A household full of brothers, a philandering father, and, most of all, Sheila’s demanding, embittered mother all stand in the way of a bright, beautiful teenager who dreams of continuing her schooling and becoming a nurse. The mother-daughter relationship at the heart of this haunting novel is both timeless and complex, and the two strong, rebellious women are more alike than they care to admit. One meets the demands of a sexist age with resentment and anger, while the other struggles to break away. In the end, Sheila defies her mother by pursuing a romance with a local carpenter. But when she becomes pregnant, she turns to her father for help, with devastating results.

First published in 1984, Snow Apples remains a classic — a gritty, uncompromising story about a young woman who struggles to choose her own path amidst formidable obstacles of family, place, and time.

While the rest of the world celebrates the end of World War II, sixteen-year-old Sheila Brary finds life in a remote British Columbia outport suffocating and isolating. A household full of brothers, a philandering father, and, most of all, Sheila’s demanding, embittered mother all stand in the way of a bright, beautiful teenager who dreams of continuing her schooling and becoming a nurse. The mother-daughter relationship at the heart of this haunting novel is both timeless and complex, and the two strong, rebellious women are more alike than they care to admit. One meets the demands of a sexist age with resentment and anger, while the other struggles to break away. In the end, Sheila defies her mother by pursuing a romance with a local carpenter. But when she becomes pregnant, she turns to her father for help, with devastating results.

First published in 1984, Snow Apples remains a classic — a gritty, uncompromising story about a young woman who struggles to choose her own path amidst formidable obstacles of family, place, and time.

Judy DaPolito - Children's Literature

It is easy to sympathize with fifteen-year-old Sheila Brary. Growing up in rural British Columbia in the 1940s, she lives in a house without running water. Her one friend on the island moves away near the beginning of the story. Her father contributes little financially, is unfaithful to her mother, and is usually gone. Her mother expects Sheila to work hard around the house, but she criticizes her incessantly and clearly prefers her four brothers. Though she is determined to finish high school and go on to college or nursing school—unlike many girls at that time—her mother sees no reason why Sheila should have the educational advantages she missed out on. In spite of the hurt caused by her mother's attitude, Sheila goes on helping. That she is a much better person than her mother gives her credit for being is also shown by the responses of the other adults around her. Helga, a lonely widowed neighbor, shows her affection for Sheila by selling her mother a piece of land on the condition that Sheila be allowed to graduate. The local doctor is so impressed by her quick action when her younger brother is seriously injured that he hires her to help out in his office. As she matures, with no guidance from her mother about her awakening sexuality, she falls for a boy who has dropped out of school to help his stepfather build houses. Nels wants her to devote herself to him and forget about further schooling, but she is still determined to go on. On the night Sheila loses her virginity, her mother goes to Nels's house and makes a scene that ends the relationship. After graduation, knowing that she is pregnant, Sheila goes to Vancouver to work in a restaurant and also to try to find herfather, who has now left home permanently. When she does find him, he buys pills so she can abort the baby, but leaves her alone at his hotel while he takes his girlfriend to a party. Terrified by the cramping and diarrhea, she takes the ferry back home. In the woods near Helga's house, dazed with pain, she weeps bitter tears as she buries the fetus. Back at work in Vancouver, determined to save enough for tuition, Sheila is amazed when her mother brings the money she needs to enter nursing school. But when she makes a visit home, believing she has misjudged her mother, her brother Tom asks why she has never thanked him for the money. The details of family relationships and the pain of growing up without loving guidance are poignantly displayed. Sheila is a complex and admirable character whose first-person narration brings this first-rate novel to life. 2006 (orig. 1984), Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, Ages 12 up.