Catch Me Once, Catch Me Twice
HarperCollins Canada
In the fall of 1942, twelve-year-old Evelyn McCallum moves from a tiny Newfoundland outport to the city of St. John’s with her pregnant mother as her father goes overseas to fight the Nazis. This dark time in World War II was marred in Newfoundland by the torpedoing of a passenger ferry and a fatal fire during a live radio broadcast. Evelyn barely knows her grandparents, and the companions her grandmother selects as suitable friends are mean girls, focused on boys and fashion. Through her grandfather, Ev makes an unlikely connection to an older boy, Peter Tilley, who shares her interests in school work and the outdoors. Together, they stumble on the hidden secret of an old spring house, one that grants Evelyn’s most heart-felt wish— if she can untangle her complicated life to decide what that might be.
Catch Me Once, Catch Me Twice is widely studied in grade seven English classes in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Read a part of Catch Me Once, Catch Me Twice.
Why I Wrote This Book
My father was in the RCAF and was stationed in Newfoundland in 1942, so I grew up thinking of the island as a place where the war had happened. In October, 1942, my father was given leave to come home to Toronto. He boarded the SS Caribou, disembarked in Nova Scotia and, the same night on its return voyage, the boat was torpedoed by a German submarine. The ferry sank and 136 people died. Learn more about the sinking of the SS Caribou here.
I moved to Newfoundland to study folklore, eventually writing a doctoral dissertation on midwives, the women who helped others through childbirth without the benefit of formal medical training. In Newfoundland, midwives often worked with trained nurses and doctors. During the long process of writing that work, I imagined a girl whose grandfather was a doctor and the friendship she formed with a boy whose grandmother was a midwife. This daydream eventually became my novel. This is not the first book I wrote, but it was the first to be published.
Reviews for Catch Me Once, Catch Me Twice
“McNaughton’s teen tale is a winner...This is an audacious effort for a first children’s novel...a tale well told, one that can transport today’s children to a different era.”
— The Globe and Mail
“McNaughton...has a splendid time with her historical setting and the hint of fairy folk that still drifts over Newfoundland...the overall result is richly textured and satisfying.”
— Books in Canada
"“Catch Me Once, Catch Me Twice” is a seamless weave of the natural with the supernatural. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED."
— Canadian Book Review Annual