History Literature / DearCanada

* RichesToRags: In ''A Rebel's Daughter'', the once-wealthy Stevenson family is left destitute after Arabella's father is arrested for his role in an anti-British rebellion. Arabella is forced to go into service, working for the family of a girl who had once been her classmate at her upper-crust school.

* RichesToRags: In ''A Rebel's Daughter'', the once-wealthy Stevenson family is left destitute after Arabella's father is arrested for his role in an anti-British rebellion. Arabella is forced to go into service, working for the family of a girl who had once been her classmate at her expensive private school.

* RichesToRags: In ''A Rebel's Daughter'', the once-wealthy Stevenson family is left destitute after Arabella's father is arrested for his role in an anti-British rebellion.

** Initially subverted in ''Pieces of the Past'', as Rose is placed with a family that is cold and distant towards her, but played straight at the end when she goes to live with her best friend's family who treat her as one of their own.

* RichesToRags: Arabella goes from a wealthy life to near-destitution after her father is arrested for his part in an anti-British rebellion.

* UnreliableNarrator: The books narrator is somewhat unreliable, considering the age and the point of view of the girl.
* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: Each book ends with an epilogue, explaining what happens to the character, her family and her friends (when applicable) after the book ends.

* HonorBeforeReason: In ''Days of Toil and Tears'', after being injured and unable to do his usual work, Flora's uncle James quits his job entirely rather than be forced to do work he feels is beneath him, even though he knows his family really can't afford to lose an income. He also refuses to write to his brother for help because he doesn't want to accept charity (although his wife and Flora eventually decide to do so behind his back anyway in hopes that the brother might have an idea to offer a solution without wounding James' pride, which the brother ultimately does).

* IllegalGuardian: In ''Orphan At My Door'', Jasper Wilson's master Carl Stone is supposed to his guardian until he is eighteen. Jasper is regularly beaten and even had his clothes confiscated, is starved to the point Jasper steals from the dog (who is just as starved), and when Jasper panics at seeing a cow after never having seen one before, Stone's response is to ''break his arm with a spade.'' It is a small wonder Jasper ran away. Carl is also a BigBrotherBully to his widowed sister and prevents her from seeing her best friend; she writes in a letter that she is grateful that Jasper escaped, and is glad that Carl never married because of [[DomesticAbuse how he would have treated a wife.]] Fortunately, at the end of the story, Carl is [[KarmaHoudiniWarranty arrested for his abuse of Jasper]], while Jasper and his sister Marianna are adopted into a loving family.

* DisappearedDad: In ''These Are My Words'', Violet doesn't even know who her biological father is; her mother simply returned home from school with a baby and never revealed who fathered her, suggesting that Violet was the product of a brief fling at best or a ChildByRape at worst.

* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Dear Canada'' books tend to be a bit darker and gritter than ''Dear America''. The most obvious case is the series' respective takes on the Holocaust; while ''Dear America'' told a story with a protagonist who escapes Austria early in the Nazi occupation, limiting the horrors she was exposed to, ''Dear Canada'' went with a story of a girl who didn't get out until ''after'' the war, so her memories include time in a ghetto, losing all her family members one by one (including witnessing the deaths of her parents), and spending several years on the run to avoid being caught by the Germans.

* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Dear Canada'' books tend to be a bit darker and gritter than ''Dear America''. The most obvious case is the series' respective takes on the Holocaust; while ''Dear America'' told a story with a protagonist who escapes Austria before the worst of it, ''Dear Canada'' went with a story of a girl who actually lived through the Nazi occupation, including several years of harrowing running and hiding to avoid being caught and sent to a camp.

* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Dear Canada'' books tend to be a bit darker and gritter than ''Dear America''. The most obvious case is the series' respective takes on the Holocaust; while ''Dear America'' told a story with a protagonist who escapes early in the Nazi occupation, ''Dear Canada'' went with a story of a girl who actually lived through Nazi occupation, including several years of harrowing running and hiding to avoid being caught and sent to a camp.