For her second YA novel, Trilby Kent (who was born in Toronto and lives in London, England) has chosen an interesting and little-known historical setting: the Second Boer War of 1899 to 1902.

Corlie Roux is a 12-year-old Boer girl living on a farm with her mother and younger brothers during the last year of the war. Her father is dead and all the men are off fighting the British. Life is hard, but it gets worse when the family is sent to an internment camp where disease and starvation are rampant.

Corlie struggles to survive the harsh environment of the camp, which is made worse by the uncompromising nationalistic attitudes of her relatives and her mother’s apparent hatred for her. However, she is a resourceful, clever girl and manages to survive to see the end of the war and discover the awful secret that explains her mother’s ire.

The descriptions of time and place in the novel are mostly strong and the language vivid, although it’s hard to imagine someone with “pointed nostrils” or a soldier who has a gun “brandished across his chest.” The story is seen through Corlie’s eyes, which makes it accessible, but leads to some narrative awkwardness, such as when she meets soldiers who speak only English: the reader understands what the soldiers say, but Corlie, who speaks only Afrikaans, doesn’t.

These minor flaws shouldn’t discourage readers from discovering this entertaining story. Corlie is an excellent role model, and many young readers will be able to relate to her trials.