This assured YA novel by award-winning author Julie Johnston (Hero of Lesser Causes, Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me) is loosely based on a real diary recorded by 16-year-old Fred Dickinson at his family cottage on Rideau Lake in the summer of 1904. Upon leaving for the cottage, the fictional Frederick is saddled with the responsibility of “making a man of himself” before returning to his father in the fall.

Frederick stammers and is prone to clumsiness, two characteristics exacerbated by grief over his mother’s death and his father’s stern surveillance over him. He comes into his own in cottage country – gaining confidence through his mastery over boats, the obvious love of his younger siblings, and the absence of fatherly nagging.

Fred is the most lovable teenage male narrator since Holden Caulfield. His social drawbacks make him acutely sensitive to the vulnerabilities of others – even his own father’s. Yet he can be daring, too; he seizes opportunities for love and adventure.

Three plotlines are skillfully interwoven: the unravelling of the mystery surrounding a nearby shack, the rough course of Fred’s first love, and his progress toward reconciliation with his father. Johnston uses bald journal entries based on those of Fred’s historical counterpart to open each chapter. Fred’s observation that people never include personal feelings in their journals sets the stage for Johnston’s expansion to include fictional thoughts and emotions. Reading between the lines is one of the underlying themes of the novel and Fred becomes particularly adept at it.

The Only Outcast, an absolutely authentic coming-of-age story in Edwardian Ontario, evokes nostalgia for memorable childhood summers and a time more innocent than our own.