The Spirit of Canada

The Spirit of Canada / Barbara Hehner, editor

I find it curious that many Canadians can tell stories, legends, tall tales, recite poems, and sing songs from other countries (especially our neighbours to the south) and yet we don't often celebrate our own creative spirit. The Spirit of Canada brings together some of Canada's best storytellers, song-writers, poets and illustrators to express our history, culture and our unique identity. This is a book that every Canadian household should have, these are stories, poems and songs that we all should know and be able to share.

From the book jacket:
As vast in scope asx Canada itself, this outstanding anthology is a book that children and their families will treasure for years to come. From Bonavista to Vancouver Island, from Native creation myths to the history being made in our own time, The Spirit of Canada celebrates our country and the people, places, and events that have made it unique.
More than one hundred selections are brought together with some 150 original illustrations by fifteen of Canada's most accomplished children's artists. Arranged both chronologically and thematically, the pieces deal with subjects as diverse as First Contact, pioneering in the West, exploration in the North, the Great Depression, and Canada's centennial.
The Spirit of Canada includes old favourites like "Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee," new classics like Gordon Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" and Roch Carrier's "Hockey Sweater," and lesser-known treasures such as Mona Gould's "This Was My Brother" and Duke Redbird's "I Am a Canadian."
Each selection is enhanced by a cultural or historical note. Capsule biographies of the authors and illustrators, as well as a useful index, round off this essential collection.

Blizzard of Glass

Blizzard of Glass : the Halifax Explosion of 1917
by Sally M. Walker

Summary from back cover:
December 6, 1917, started lie any other day in Halifax, but everything stopped shortly before 9 a.m., when two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. One of those ships was loaded with munitions and the other held medical supplies, both intended for war-torn Europe.
The resulting disaster was the largest man-made explosion until the detonation of the atomic bomb in 1945. The blast flattened two towns, Halifax and Dartmouth, and killed nearly 2,000 people. As if that wasn't devastating enough, a blizzard hit the next day, dumping more than a foot of snow on the area and slowing much needed relief efforts.
Packed with period photographs, Blizzard of Glass is just what today's young nonfiction lovers are looking for: a fascinating true story and a gripping read.

Back in 2004 Cathy Beveridge wrote a fiction story based on the Halifax explosion titled : Chaos in Halifax, it's a great book and this is also a great book filling in some details about this harrowing event in Canadian history. I liked how the book followed the story of several young people (survivors) as they started their day and the aftermath that followed. The photos from the Nova Scotia archives also provide the reader with a true sense of how forceful the blast and the following tsunami was on the towns of Dartmouth and Halifax.
I can't wait to share this narrative non-fiction with G.S. Lakie students.