Under a Shooting Star

The middle grades adventure novel Under a Shooting Star (2001) by prolific children’s author Maxine Trottier is the third in her Canadian historical fiction series, The Circle of Silver Chronicles. The trilogy follows successive generations of the MacNeils, an English family that first immigrated to Canada in the 18th century. Under a Shooting Star is set during the War of 1812, as a mixed-race teenage member of the third generation of MacNeils must escort two Americans to safety while navigating his bicultural identity and a growing attraction to one of his charges. The plot is fast-paced and complex enough that the School Library Journal’s Kristen Oravec worries that “the historical details are somewhat confusing as it is not always clear who is fighting whom and why.” Nevertheless, the novel has been praised for its focus on an overlooked period of history, for its equal focus on the lives of colonists and First Nations people, and for creating strong and well-rounded characters.

Fifteen-year-old Edward Wolf MacNeil is a half-English half-Oneida teenager living in Ontario, Canada at the beginning of the 19th century when he is caught up in the War of 1812, an opportunistic conflict fought by the United States against Britain. The US wanted to expand westward but couldn’t while Britain backed the Native tribes living on the western half of the continent, so the US started a war when Britain’s main forces were tied up in battles against Napoleon in Europe. Because Canada was still a British colony, British forces used forts built along its southern borders as staging grounds.

One of these forts is Fort George, a military installation in the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. As civilians scramble from the area the summer before fighting reaches the fort, Edward is charged with a serious commission: Because he is an experienced sailor, he is entrusted with the safety of two sisters, 15-year-old Kate and 12-year-old Anne Kimmerling —the plan is for them to sail aboard a ship sailing south from Fort George down the Detroit River, and then across Lake Erie to Detroit. From there, the Kimmerlings should be able to travel to their home in Sandusky, Ohio, by railway, while Edward makes his way to Peche Island, just north of Detroit in Lake St. Claire, to wait out the war in his uncle’s secluded cabin.



The early stages of the journey go well, but a turbulent summer storm sinks the ship in the middle of Lake Erie after its stores of gunpowder explode during the mayhem. Edward, Kate, and Anne survive, shipwrecking on a small island. They are lucky to have escaped with their lives, but their chances of surviving in the wilderness appear slim until they encounter Paukeesaa, one of the sons of the great Native chief Tecumseh, the leader of a multi-tribe confederation that has allied with the British against the US. Paukeesaa is at first reluctant to help the teens but then befriends them. As Paukeesaa helps Edward, Kate, and Anne make their way to Peche Island (the girls are unable to get to Detroit, which is now under British control), the friendship helps Edward deal with some of the conflicted feelings he has about his mixed heritage.

In his uncle’s cabin, the three survivors find a measure of safety. However, Edward is surprised to discover that his uncle isn’t in his home and worries about his whereabouts. At the same time, Edward is confused by the shifting loyalties he feels after growing closer to his American charges. He and Kate have clearly developed romantic feelings for one another, and he feels torn between obedience to his family, which strongly believes in pacifism, and his Oneida and British heritage, which seems to point him toward joining the war on the British side.

Helping him heal the rift between his ethnicities of origin even further is the journal he finds in his uncle’s cabin. It belongs to Edward’s mother, Charlotte, better known as Mack MacNeil, a character from the second novel of the series, By the Standing Stone. In her journal, Mack describes falling in love with Owela, a young Oneida brave, and deciding to be with him despite the social opprobrium that could follow.



The climactic moment of the novel is the Battle of Lake Erie, fought in September of 1813, in which the US Navy defeated the British, gaining control of that body of water and Detroit, and eventually leading to the breaking of Tecumseh’s tribal federation. Shocked by the raging war, Edward decides to forsake his family’s pacifist philosophy, instead, helping the war effort through his knowledge of shipbuilding. Eventually, he makes his way home, and the novel ends with the implication that he and Kate will continue their romance.

Writing for The Manitoba Library Association, Gail de Vos describes the novel as “a well-written adventure story [which] considers pacifism at a time when war was thought of as an honorable activity […] more notably, it is also a story about the complex search for individual and internal acceptance.”