English gentlewoman-cum-Canadian scribe Susanna Moodie has been the subject of several literary treatments, most notably Margaret Atwood’s The Journals of Susanna Moodie. In Susanna’s Quill, author Julie Johnston from Peterborough, Ontario, adapts Moodie’s famous story for a YA audience. Drawing on Moodie’s autobiography Roughing It in the Bush, as well as her letters to her husband and family, Johnston’s novel chronicles Moodie’s childhood in England, where she was one of several literary sisters, through her immigration and pioneering days in the backwoods of Canada. Like Roughing It, Susanna’s Quill ends with Moodie leaving her farm for the relative civilization of the nearby city of Belleville.

In writing this novel, Johnston remains true to the source material, working into her narrative such devastating incidents as the Moodies’ house fire and the breaking of Susanna’s bone china (an event that symbolized her final break with England). Johnston’s extensive research shows in her attention to historical and personal detail as she narrates the settlers’ very difficult lives. Moodie’s history as an abolitionist, author, and reluctant Canadian provides compelling material, and readers aged 11 and up who enjoy historical fiction and settler narratives will find much to satisfy their interests.

Despite the book’s accuracy, however, or maybe because of it, the story fails to become entirely engrossing. While the narrative contains many dramatic events, the sheer number of catastrophes and setbacks numbs rather than stirs the reader, perhaps because the character of Susanna remains distant and unsympathetic. Her class prejudices and rigid social mores make her too priggish and remote for contemporary audiences to identify with. In contrast, Jenny, the Moodies’ uneducated servant girl, is a realistic, very likable figure who steals the show from the purported protagonist.