Children of My Heart

Je crois que c’est le premier roman écrit du point de vue d’un enseignant que j’aie lu. En tant qu’enseignante, j’ai été très touchée par le portrait que brosse Roy des dynamiques de classe, du lien entre l’enseignant, ses élèves et la communauté autour d’eux, surtout de l’amour et du dévouement qu’un prof peut ressentir pour ceux et celles sous sa tutelle. Roy décrit avec beaucoup de tendresse et d’intelligence les petits rituels comme celui des cadeaux de Noël que les enfants rêvent d’offrir à leur maîtresse ou les visites très convoitées de « mamzelle » chez les familles des petits. Il est aussi fascinant d’entrapercevoir le monde du Manitoba dans les années 20-30 avec ses plaines, ses show more tempêtes de neige, sa vie rurale.

Les premiers récits sont plus légers et se « lisent bien ». Les derniers sont plus longs et plus poignants. C’est
dans le récit tournant autour de Médéric, de la relation trouble entre une jeune institutrice et son élève adolescent, que ses déploient les qualités profondément humaines de l’écrivaine. J’ai trouvé cet ultime récit particulièrement ambiguë et empreint d’une grande vulnérabilité, tant de la part de la narratrice que du personnage de Médéric.

Un classique que j’ai été heureuse de découvrir ! show less

A novel of a young teacher in the depression-era prairies, Roy tells the stories of children from the desperately poor families of rural Manitoba. The stories are told by the protagonist, a young, unnamed teacher, who teaches at an isolated village school. Roy presents children heavily laden with the burdens of poverty, adult concerns, and adult responsibilities. It quickly becomes clear what a significant role a caring young teacher plays in the lives of these children. In many cases she is the only adult who has the luxury to treat her pupils as children. The protagonist retains youthful enthusiasm in the most trying of circumstances, until she is faced with a new kind of trial: a budding romance with a troubled teenage student. show more Mederic, the son of a distant father and an absent mother, is desperately in need of attention, and his young teacher is desperately in need of companionship. When she tries to reach Mederic's mind a clear affection develops between them, and this budding relationship offers few good solutions. Roy's novel is rife with sadness, but also with a sense of persistence. The desperate poverty of the 1930s immigrant prairie communities is brought into stark relief by Roy's prose; written in a lyrical style, she paints a dramatic picture. show less

The story of a young teacher on the prairies reads more like three inter-connected stories than like a novel. In tht way, it parallels the life of a teacher -- children come and go through her life and leave a lasting impression on her. As the title suggests, some leave that impression forever on her heart.

Gabrielle Roy's writing style is amazing with some of the most beautiful phrases I've ever read. She is able to invoke strong and lasting images of scenery and of feelings.

The last novel Roy wrote based on her early teaching experiences in rural Manitoba and in Winnipeg. I found it very sentimental and glossed over. There was just one interesting story there about her ambiguous relationship with a male pupil who was just four years younger than she was at the time. He was fourteen and she was eighteen.

Beautiful stories. Makes me wish Gabrielle Roy had been my teacher. Although my teachers all worked hard, I can't say that any of them showed the love and concern that Gabrielle Roy did for her teachers. It seems like all the children she taught remained "Children of her Heart".

This novel has the form of a gentle series of stories of an 18 year old teacher and her class of 35 young boys in their first year of school, and of later years teaching in a village school in the Canadian prairies. The children's youthful fears, hopes, delights and innocence are beautifully portrayed, as the young teacher Gabrielle leads them into the wider world of books and knowledge, with loving care. A classic, one of Roy's best loved novels. I liked it when I was a teenager, and now as a parent of young children I find it even more poignant. The book was originally published in French in 1977 as "Ces enfants de ma vie". This translation is by Alan Brown.

really boring.