Books

Description

Description: Ritchie Scott grew up in the small prairie town of Alameda, Saskatchewan in the 1920s and Dirty Thirties. He was the youngest son of seven children born to Richard Herbert Scott, a well-established businessman and the first mayor of Alameda, and Myrtle Scott (McNaughton) of Wawanesa, Manitoba. Forever Changed, written by Ritchie’s daughter Cheri Helstrom, is told through Ritchie’s eyes, in Ritchie’s words, taking the reader from rural Saskatchewan to the north, to eastern Canada (Toronto), across the Atlantic to Britain, to the battlefields of Italy during the Second World War, to an English military hospital and, finally, home to Canada.

​The story centres on major, traumatic events in Ritchie’s life which led him to sign up for military duty when he was nineteen. The resulting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had far-reaching effects physically, emotionally, and socially. Forever Changed honours Ritchie’s life and times and celebrates his accomplishments.

SK Curriculum: Grades 10-12 – ELA, History, Social Studies
Awards/Honours: Runner-Up, Biography, 2016 Great Midwest Book Festival;
​Honorable Mention, Nonfiction, 2016 Hollywood Book Festival
ISBN 978-1-927570-27-2; 5.5″w x 8.5″h; 128 pages; 30 photos
© ​2016; Ages 13 to Adult; Creative nonfiction; Canadian history; Second World War; Royal Canadian Legion; Biography; Prairies; Memoir; Saskatchewan author.

Responses from Readers:

• “This book is a legacy, not only for Cheri Helstrom’s children, but also for surviving veterans and their families.”
• “I can just see this book as a movie. The descriptions are so vivid!”
• “What a great book. Fascinating story.”