John McCrae
Shortlisted, 2018 Forest of Reading Golden Oak Award
Most Canadians are familiar with John McCrae through his iconic poem “In Flanders Fields,” which was penned on the battlefields of the First World War and remains a symbol of remembrance to this day. Although he will always be remembered as a war poet, the Guelph, Ontario, native was a physici …
Heart Like a Wing
Briony, a prairie girl with a disfigured face, is adopted when she is nine by a childless older couple, Dagget and Moll, who appear mysteriously one day at her orphanage. They take her to their remote town of Crowsbeak in northern Saskatchewan where Briony, tormented by her schoolmates for her scarred face and dark skin, struggles to fit in. Briony …
Creating Canada’s Peacekeeping Past
Peacekeeping. Despite efforts to relegate it to the past, what was once a central pillar in Canada’s national identity has been making a comeback in recent years. Creating Canada’s Peacekeeping Past illuminates how participation in the United Nations’ peacekeeping efforts from 1956 to 1997 became central to national self-identification in bot …
The Weight of Command
Three-quarters of a century after the Second World War, almost all the participants are gone. This book contains interviews with and about the Canadian who led the troops during that war. Edited and introduced by one of the foremost military historians of our time, this carefully curated collection brings to life the generals and their wartime expe …
Maritime Command Pacific
The Royal Canadian Navy crews that sailed the Atlantic during the early Cold War held a contemptuous view of their West Coast brethren, likening the Pacific fleet to a “yacht club” where sailors enjoyed a life of leisurely service on a tranquil sea. As David Zimmerman reveals, nothing could be further from the truth. From the fleet’s postwar …
Britannia's Navy on the West Coast of North America, 1812-1914
The influence of the Royal Navy on the development of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest was both effective and extensive. Yet all too frequently, its impact has been ignored by historians, who instead focus on the influence of explorers, fur traders, settlers, and railway builders. In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition of his cla …
Gatherings XV
The Gatherings-Water project reflects the cultural rejuvenation of Indigenous Youth in B.C. It is not only a revival of a respected anthology series, but also a new level of engagement between publishing house and community, between established writers and emerging voices, and finally a testament to the connection of Indigenous Youth with the life- …
Unwanted Warriors
Unwanted Warriors uncovers the history of Canada’s first casualties of the Great War – men who tried to enlist but were deemed “unfit for service.” What impact did military exclusion have on these men? Nic Clarke looks for answers in the service files of 3,400 rejected volunteers and explores the mechanics of the medical examination, the ph …
Frame and The McGuire
After Frame and her brother, Ranger, discover Uncle Tam’s body in the river, they wonder if his death was really an accident. Their suspicions are confirmed when they find a knife under a rock. Clues mount up after they discover that their neighbor, Mr. McGuire, is mistreating Uncle Tam’s dog, Sandy.
How I Won the War for the Allies
Still sassy, Doris Gregory takes the reader back over seventy years to the time when she broke with tradition, first by publicly challenging the University of British Columbia's discrimination against women, and then by joining the Canadian Women's Army Corps. Her memoir allows us to travel with her across the Atlantic at the height of the U-boat i …
In Peace Prepared
The Allies claimed victory at the end of the Second World War, but the United States’ invention of the atomic bomb and its replication by the Soviet Union posed new dangers for all nations. This book examines what Canada’s Cold War Army did to prepare for nuclear war – and why and how it did it. Although the war never materialized, officers, …
From Classroom to Battlefield
In August 1914, Canada found itself jolted from its splendid isolation by the onrush of a European catastrophe. In Victoria, British Columbia, five hundred youth who had been educated at Victoria High School went to war and were forever changed by the experience.
From Classroom to Battlefield follows the experiences of this cohort through the Second …
Down To Earth
Two friends began peeking over fences to find out how people in cold climates grow their own food. Throughout the beautiful Elk Valley, in the southeastern corner of British Columbia, they found generous gardeners who taught them simple ways to grow more productive and sustainable gardens.
In vivid colour, Down to Earth celebrates the viability of …
From the West Coast to the Western Front
It has often been observed that the First World War jolted Canada into nationhood, and as Mark Forsythe and Greg Dickson show in this compelling book, no province participated more eagerly in that transformation or felt the aftershock more harshly than British Columbia. In From the West Coast to the Western Front, Forsythe, host of CBC Radio's mid- …
Terrible Victory
BOOK SIX in the Canadian Battle Series
Terrible Victory is a gripping account of Canada's bloody liberation of western Holland, one of our finest, and most costly, military victories.
On September 4, 1944, Antwerp, Europe's largest port, fell to the Second British Army and it seemed the war would soon be won. But Antwerp was of little value unless th …
The Soldiers' General
By the end of the Second World War, Bert Hoffmeister had risen from Captain to Major-General and won more awards than any Canadian officer in the war. This native Vancouverite earned a reputation as a fearless commander on the battlefield – one who led from the front, one well loved by those he led. With an astute analytical eye, Delaney carefull …
A National Force
This landmark book dispels the idea that the period between the Second World War and the unification of the armed services in 1968 constituted the Canadian Army’s “golden age.” Drawing on recently declassified documents, Peter Kasurak depicts an era clouded by the military leadership’s failure to loosen the grasp of British army culture, pr …
Unlikely Diplomats
In 1951, Canada sent troops to western Europe to support its NATO allies. The brigade helped Canada establish its international status. In private, however, Canadian officials and military leaders expressed grave doubts about NATO’s strategies and operational plans. Despite these reservations, they sent military families overseas and implemented …
A Small Price to Pay
We often picture life on the Canadian home front as a time of austerity, as a time when women went to work and men went to war. Graham Broad explodes this myth of home front sacrifice by bringing to light the contradictions of consumer society in wartime. Governments pressured Depression-weary citizens to save for the sake of the nation, but Canadi …
The Book of Kale and Friends
"It has real personality and charm and the overall results are delicious." -- Taste Canada jury, praise for The Book of Kale
Following the success of her national bestseller, The Book of Kale, Sharon Hanna is back, teaming up with gardening editor Carol Pope, for even more fun with kale. There are good reasons why the Kale Revolution is growing -- t …
Death or Deliverance
Soldiers found guilty of desertion or cowardice during the Great War faced death by firing squad. Novels, histories, movies, and television series often depict courts martial as brutal and inflexible, and social memories of this system of frontline justice have inspired modern movements to seek pardons for soldiers executed on the battlefield. In t …
Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers
The first-ever synthesis of both the patriotic and the problematic in wartime Canada, Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers shows how moral and social changes, and the fears they generated, precipitated numerous, and often contradictory, legacies in law and society. From labour conflicts, to the black market, to prostitution, and beyond, Keshen acknowledge …
Enemy Offshore!
On June 20, 1942, the lighthouse at Estevan Point on Vancouver Island was shelled by the Japanese submarine I-26. It was the first enemy attack on Canadian soil since the War of 1812. But this was only one incident in the incredible and little-known Japanese campaign to terrorize North America’s west coast and mount an invasion through the Aleuti …
Tragedy at Dieppe
Now in paper! The gripping story of the Canadian Army's disastrous raid on Dieppe -- the tenth instalment of the bestselling Canadian Battle Series.
Nicknamed "the Poor Man's Monte Carlo," Dieppe had no strategic importance in World War II -- but the decision to assault it in August 1942 with the largest raid mounted to that date was political. With …
The Canadian Rangers
The Canadian Rangers stand sentinel in the farthest reaches of our country. For more than six decades, this dedicated group of citizen-soldiers has quietly served as Canada’s eyes, ears, and voice in isolated coastal and northern communities from coast to coast to coast.
How does this minimally trained and lightly equipped force make a meaningful …
Sam Steele and the Northwest Rebellion
In the spring of 1885, it appeared that war was about to set the Canadian West aflame. Louis Riel had established a Metis provisional government at Batoche, and the Cree, led by war chief Wandering Spirit, had killed settlers, taken hostages and forced the capitulation of Fort Pitt. Among the forces marshalled to quell the unrest was an elite scout …
Just Ask Wim!
What vegetables can I plant as winter crops? How can I avoid bitter bolting lettuce? When is the best time to cut back rhodos? How do I overwinter my geraniums and fuchsias? What fastgrowing evergreen hedge will work for my narrow urban yard? How late can I plant spring-flowering bulbs? What should I do about the chafer infestation that is destroyi …
The Red Man's on the Warpath
During the Second World War, thousands of First Nations people joined in the national crusade to defend freedom and democracy. High rates of Native enlistment and public demonstrations of patriotism encouraged Canadians to re-examine the roles and status of Native people in Canadian society. The Red Man’s on the Warpath explores how wartime symbo …
Labour Goes to War
During the Second World War, the Congress of Industrial Organizations in Canada grew from a handful of members to more than a quarter-million. What was it about the “good war” that brought about this phenomenal growth? Labour Goes to War argues that both economic and cultural forces were at work. Labour shortages gave workers greater economic p …
Breakout from Juno
The ninth book in the Canadian Battle Series, Breakout from Juno, is the first dramatic chronicling of Canada's pivotal role throughout the entire Normandy Campaign following the D-Day landings.
On July 4, 1944, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division won the village of Carpiquet but not the adjacent airfield. Instead of a speedy victory, the men faced a …