Historical fiction for children, which I found very readable and lively until I got distracted halfway through by perplexity. The name of the protagonist, Peter Demo, seemed unlikely to the point of impossibility for a French child, and not until the epilogue did the author explain that it is the actual name of her great-great-great-great grandfather, whose story this is. His surname is "believed to have been de Mont" before it was anglicized; his forename of course was also anglicized when he settled in Vermont, but she doesn't say so. It would have been much better either to have explained this in the introduction or to have given him in the story the name he almost certainly used in his youth and avoid anachronism.

Good coverage of the internal squabbles and corruption which made it so difficult for Montcalm to defend Quebec, and very engaging scenes with the Abnaki. ( )