Canada

Materials from Canada

Playgrounds of Babel

This unusual, thought-provoking story begins with an old woman telling a tale to a group of children in a playground. One of the boys can’t understand what she is saying, so another offers to translate. The old woman’s tale is inspired by the Tower of Babel story: In the days when everyone spoke the same language, the people built a tower to reach God. But God was annoyed and sent a dragon to destroy the tower, then created new languages for everyone so that they couldn’t understand each other. Fortunately, two little girls find a way to communicate through song.

Featured in August 2023’s WOW Dozen on books about Language Learning and Communication.

Albert’s Quiet Quest

Albert’s home is very loud–and all he wants to do is read! He escapes outside for some peace, and thinks he’s found it at last. But, one by one, his friends boisterously infiltrate his space until Albert just can’t take it anymore…and snaps! How will his friends react? While they leave him alone at first, they slowly return…with books in hand.

Dolphin Sos

Based on true events, Dolphin SOS recounts the story of three dolphins trapped in an ice covered cove off the coast of Newfoundland. After the government fails to provide assistance, local children take matters into their owns hands in order to save the distressed dolphins.

Stolen Girl

When Nadia arrives in Canada in 1950 with Marusia, the woman she calls mother, she is glad to finally be out of the displaced persons camp where she has lived for five years, but troubled by confused memories of World War II; she speaks Ukrainian, but she seems to remember living with a German Nazi family who called her by a different name. As she tries to settle into the Canadian-Ukrainian community of Brantford, she is haunted by one question: who is she, and where was she stolen from.

Shu-Li And Tamara

This contemporary story of the true friendship between two girls is set in Vancouver’s Commercial Drive neighborhood. Shu-Li’s parents run a local Chinese deli and much of the story revolves around food. There is a helpful compendium of recipes at the end of the book for kids to try out. Beautifully illustrated throughout with line drawings.

Where I Belong

This moving novel of self-discovery and awareness takes place during the Oka crisis in the summer of 1990. Adopted as an infant, Carrie has always felt out of place somehow. Recurring dreams haunt her, warning that someone close to her will be badly hurt. When she finds out that her birth father is Mohawk, living in Kahnawake, Quebec, she makes the journey and finally achieves a sense of home and belonging.

Featured in Volume V, Issue 2 of WOW Review.

A Voice for the Spirit Bears: How One Boy Inspired Millions to Save a Rare Animal

As a child, Simon Jackson found navigating the world of the school playground difficult. He felt most at home in the woodlands, learning about and photographing wildlife. As a teenager, he became fascinated with spirit bears, a rare subspecies of black bear with creamy white fur. These elusive creatures were losing their habitat to deforestation, and Simon knew he had to do something to protect them. He decided he would become the voice for the spirit bears. But first, he would have to find his own.

The Lotterys More Or Less

Nine-year-old Sumac Lottery considers it her job to make sure none of the Lottery celebrations are forgotten, especially now at Christmas time, and in her large, gay, and multiethnic family there are a lot of occasions for celebration in the house they all call Camelottery–but when a terrible ice storm hits Toronto, one of her dads, and her favorite brother cannot make it home from India, and it becomes increasingly difficult to hang on to the holiday spirit.