Volume 1 Number 7
July 28, 1995

The Defenders. (Part of the ``Discovering Canada" series.)
Robert Livesey
Illustrated by A.G. Smith.
Toronto: Stoddart, 1994. 90pp, paper, $9.95.
ISBN 0-7737-5665-5. CIP.

Grades 4 - 8 / Ages 9 - 13.

Review by Dave Jenkinson.

excerpt:

``Canadians are a peace-loving people.... But Canadians are not weak or timid. If we are attacked, we are quick to defend ourselves."

In The Defenders, Robert Livesey presents an overview of Canada's military involvement in the War of 1812-14 in seven chapters arranged in essentially chronological order. The book's title reflects Livesey's position that Canada has always been a non-belligerent nation, populated by peace-loving people, and that this country's role in that nineteenth-century conflict was simply a defensive, albeit heroic, response to an American invasion of seemingly overwhelming numbers.

Each brief chapter consists of three parts: the ``hard," sometimes dry, history; a number of interesting and lively anecdotes, usually about people; and a ``fun" history-related student activity. The activities are diverse enough to include a crossword puzzle, an 1812 chocolate fudge recipe, and a pattern for making a shako -- a soldier's hat. The book also contains two chronologies, one of lake battles, the other of land engagements, the latter accompanied by a map.

Some two dozen of Smith's pen-and-ink illustrations, mostly decorative but occasionally functional, are distributed throughout the book so that only rarely will readers find a pair of facing pages which are solid print. An index increases the book's usefulness as an additional resource for middle-school units on Canadian History.

Recommended.

For a fictional treatment of the War of 1812, see Kevin James Block's Without Shedding of Blood, reviewed in issue 5.

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba.

Copyright © 1995 the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

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