Mary Ann Alice / Doyle, Brian

In 1926, Canadian seventh-grader Mary Ann Alice McCrank, named after her church's bell and proudly possessing the soul of a poet, describes the changes the new Paugan Dam will bring to her riverside town of Low and also carefully plans her first kiss.

During the late 1920s, life changes for the people who live along the Gatineau River when the Paugan Dam is built near Low. For Mary Ann Alice the dam threatens the fossils that she finds along the river and under the Paugan Falls.