Catherine Parr Traill
Subtitled A Tale of the Rice Lake Plains, an area of what is now central southern Ontario, this work first published in 1852 is considered to be the first Canadian novel for children and the first to feature a Canadian-born protagonist. Traill (nee Strickland, 1802-99) emigrated to Canada from England upon her marriage and wrote about life as a settler and also, as a keen naturalist, many works on the native plant life. 3