Charlie Wilcox is a children's novel by Sharon E. McKay about a Canadian boy in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The novel won the Geoffrey Bilson Award

Geoffrey Bilson Award

The Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young Readers is a Canadian literary award that goes to the best work of historical fiction written for youth each year...

 and the Violet Downey Award. It is followed by a sequel, Charlie Wilcox's Great War, published in 2003.

Plot introduction

The book opens in Newfoundland in 1915. Charlie Wilcox's parents want him to go to college rather than become a seal hunter like his father; they believe that his club foot

Club foot

A club foot, or congenital talipes equinovarus , is a congenital deformity involving one foot or both. The affected foot appears rotated internally at the ankle. TEV is classified into 2 groups: Postural TEV or Structural TEV....

 makes him unfit for an active life. To prove his courage and ability, fourteen-year-old Charlie decides to stow away on a sealing vessel; however, he finds himself instead on a troop ship bound for the war in Europe. Rather than return, he chooses to become a stretcher bearer at the front where he witnesses the horrors of trench warfare

Trench warfare

Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...

 and the Battle of the Somme.

External links

• Publisher's site