Charlie Wilcox is an old-fashioned hero with the enormous appeal of the runt who triumphs against the odds. He is a 13-year-old Newfoundlander with a club foot and a heart set on becoming a sealer, like his father and grandfather. His parents’ dearest wish is for their delicate son to avoid a gruelling life on the ice and to become the family’s first university graduate. Deeply hurt that he is deemed unfit for his father’s calling, Charlie stows away on what he thinks is a sealing vessel. He discovers too late that the ship is bound for the front, carrying the Newfoundland Regiment.

Choosing a traditional linear structure, McKay effortlessly chronicles the struggles of Charlie, who was her great-uncle, to prove himself, to both his family and the married nurse he secretly loves. McKay authentically recreates the Newfoundland dialect, and in her portrait of Brigus deftly suggests the close-knit nature of outport life. Charlie’s exciting odyssey culminates at Beaumont Hamel, a place synonymous in Newfoundland with both glorious courage and terrible sacrifice. McKay’s vivid descriptions of Charlie’s experiences as a Red Cross volunteer in the trenches will open young readers to the daily horrors of the Great War.

One caveat: A good story, well-told, deserves an evocative title. While Charlie Wilcox means a lot to author Sharon E. McKay and no doubt to the people of Brigus, where he was a considerable personage, it means nothing to the uninitiated. This is the only instance in which McKay ignores her great-uncle’s advice never to let fact get in the way of great fiction.