The Juneberry Tree

Named after the first tree to blossom in the spring and the first to die in the fall, The Juneberry Tree is a modern day Alice in Wonderland. The young heroine of this delightful tale is named Tinamer. Through her eyes we see a whole new universe. It is polarized, divided by the family home in Longueuil. In the back of the house is the 'good side of things,' a phantasy-world which Tinamer inherits from her father's imagination, the 'Sea of Tranquility' separating the past from the dream world. In the front of the house is the 'bad side of things.' Tinamer's father leaves by the front door to go to work, crossing the street to where mechanization taints the world of dream. A day comes however, when Tinamer must go by the 'bad side of things' to go to school. She discovers that things are neither completely good nor completely bad, representing a farewell to childhood, that happy state of absolutes. / It is rare that an author is apotheosized in mid-career. But so prolific is Jacques Ferron, and such is the race of events in modern Quebec, that the critic and Professor of Medieval Literature at Laval University, Jean Marcel, has written a whole volume about Ferron, entitled Jacques Ferron malgré lui (Editions du Jour, 1970). In the opening paragraph to this book Marcel states: "Thanks to Jacques Ferron, Quebec will be as well known in times to come as Arabia.