Great Stories of Canada

Today I'd like to introduce you to a whole series of living books on Canadian history!

Published between 1953 and 1968, "Great Stories of Canada" are the Canadian equivalent of the popular Landmark series in the US. Sadly, they are long out of print, but you can still find them at library sales and thrift stores. I'm including lots of pictures so you can recognize them when you see them there, and snap them up!



This past year, we read Kerry Woods' The Map-Maker: The Story of David Thompson from this series. We read it as a Canadian substitute for a book on Lewis and Clark in the American curriculum we follow, and it was a worthy substitute. It held the interest of all my students, from SA(9) down to MM(5), and I am confident that they will "know" David Thompson for the rest of their lives. We also made great use of the map in the front of the book for our Canadian geography lessons.

The books in the Great Stories of Canada series are written by various authors. I have not read all of them yet, but skimming through the ones I have I am confident that the writing quality is consistently good. We did find one author, Joseph Schull, (Battle for the Rock, about the Battle on the Plains of Abraham) was not ideal for reading and narration in grade 3 because my student was losing track of the many characters. However, I would still recommend the book, and it would probably have worked for an older student in grades 4-6. Other authors include Pierre Berton, Thomas Raddall, Edward McCourt, and Roderick Haig-Brown.


One of my favourite features of this series are the historical maps in the beginning of each book. Thus far in my experience with these books, I have found that the maps contain all the places mentioned in the story and no more, allowing children to follow along easily as they read.

There are also a few illustrations, in most books one or two pen-and-ink drawings per chapter. The quality of these varies a little depending on the artist employed.



The series was originally published by MacMillan, but you may also find editions published later by The Canadiana Company with two titles per volume, like these.

I also include a list of titles and authors for your convenience. Please note that I do not endorse the contents of each individual book, as I have not read them all. Please do your own due diligence!

1. The Scarlet Force: The Making of the Mounted Police by T. Morris Longstreth

2. The Force Carries On by T. Morris Longstreth

3. Raiders of the Mohawk: The Story of Butler's Rangers by Orlo Miller

4. The Nor-Westers: The Fight for the Fur Trade by Marjorie Wilkins Campbell

5. The Golden Trail: The Story of the Klondike Rush by Pierre Berton

6. Buckskin Brigadier: The Story of the Alberta Field Force in 1885 by Edward McCourt

7. The Map-Maker: The Story of David Thompson by Kerry Wood

8. Arctic Assignment: The Story of the "St. Roch" by Sgt. F.S. Farrar, RCMP

9. Captain of the Discovery: The Story of Captain George Vancouver by Roderick Haig-Brown

10. The Bold Heart: The Story of Father Lacombe by Josephine Phelan

11. Redcoat Sailor: The Story of Sir Howard Douglas by R. S. Lambert

12. Red River Adventure: The Story of the Selkirk Settlers by J. W. Chalmers

13. The True North: The Story of Captain Joseph Bernier by T. C. Fairley and Charles E. Israel

14. The Great Chief: Maskepetoon: Warrior of the Crees by Kerry Wood

15. The Salt-Water Men: Canada's Deep-Sea Sailors by Joseph Schull

16. The Rover: The Story of a Canadian Privateer by Thomas H. Raddall

17. Revolt in the West: The Story of the Riel Rebellion by Edward McCourt

18. Knights of the Air: Canadian Aces of World War I by John Norman Harris

19. Frontenac and the Iroquois: The Fighting Governor of New France by Fred Swayze

20. Man from St. Malo: The Story of Jacques Cartier by Robert D. Ferguson

21. Battle for the Rock: The Story of Wolfe and Montcalm by Joseph Schull

22. The Queen's Cowboy: James Macleod of the Mounties by Kerry Wood

23. Fur Trader: The Story of Alexander Henry by Robert D. Ferguson

24. The First Canadian: The Story of Champlain by C. T. Ritchie

25. Adventurers from the Bay: Men of the Hudson's Bay Company by Clifford Wilson

26. Ships of the Great Days: Canada's Navy in World War II by Joseph Schull

27. Mutiny in the Bay: Henry Hudson's Last Voyage by R. S. Lambert

28. Runner of the Woods: The Story of Young Radisson by C. T. Ritchie

29. The Good Soldier: The Story of Sir Isaac Brock by D. J. Goodspeed

30. Tecumseh: The Story of the Shawnee Chief by Luella Bruce Creighton

31. The Row-Boat War: On the Great Lakes 1812-1814 by Fred Swayze

32. The Ballad of D'Arcy McGee: Rebel in Exile by Josephine Phelan

33. The Savage River: Seventy-One Days with Simon Fraser by Marjorie Wilkins Campbell

Happy hunting!

P.S. Have you read any of these books? I'd love to hear how you liked specific books in the series.

School Education Chapter 16: How to Use School-Books

This blog post is part of an on-going daily series this month as I read (very quickly) through School Education by Charlotte Mason. Join me! Pick up your book and read a chapter, or find it free online at Ambleside Online.

Summary

Principles for selecting the best school-books:

-Books must be living, informed with the ideas proper to the subject.
-Books do not have to be big to be living
-Books do not necessarily have to written by the original thinker to be living, as long as the author has made its ideas his own and can communicate them in a suitable way.

How to use the right books:

Children
-Enjoy the books
-Do the work of thinking
-Assimilate or reject the ideas for himself

Teachers
-Enjoy the books themselves, and communicate that in some small way
-Do not explain too much
-Require the child to do the work of thinking by asking for narration after a single reading
-Be prepared, so they know the lessons and can choose work suitable to the book and challenging for the child.
-Do not allow teaching methods to come between the child and the ideas in the book.

Different ways to use narration:
-Narration after a single careful reading 
-Give the points of a description
-Give the sequence of a series of incidents
-Give the links in a chain of argument

Other ways to use books:
-Enumerate the statements in a paragraph or chapter
-Analyse a chapter
-Divide a chapter into paragraphs under proper headings
-Tabulate and classify series
-Trace cause to consequence and consequence to cause
-Discern character and perceive how character and circumstance interact
-Get lessons of life and conduct
-Get living knowledge that makes for science
-Write a half a dozen questions covering the passage studied

Quotes

"I think we should have a great educational revolution once we [...] realised ourselves as persons whose great business it is to get in touch with other persons of all sorts and conditions, of all countries and climes, of all times, past and present. History would become entrancing, literature a magic mirror for the discovery of other minds, the study of sociology a duty and a delight. We should tend to become responsive and wise, humble and reverent, recognising the duties and the joys of the full human life.  We cannot of course overtake such a programme of work, but we can keep it in view; and I suppose every life is moulded upon its ideal." (p. 175)

"In their power of giving impulse and stirring emotion is another use of books, the right books; but that is just the question--which are the right books?--a point upon which I should not wish to play Sir Oracle. The 'hundred best books for the schoolroom' may be put down on a list, but not by me. I venture to propose one or two principles in the matter of school-books, and shall leave the far more difficult part, the application of those principles, to the reader." (p. 177)

"I think we owe it to children to let them dig their knowledge, of whatever subject, for themselves out of the fit book; and this for two reasons: What a child digs for is his own possession; what is poured into his ear, like the idle song of a pleasant singer, floats out as lightly as it came in, and is rarely assimilated." (p. 177)

"ideas must reach us directly from the mind of the thinker, and it is chiefly by means of the books they have written that we get into touch with the best minds." (p. 177)

"Again, we need not always insist that a book should be written by the original thinker. It sometimes happens that second-rate minds have assimilated the matter in hand, and are able to give out what is their own thought (only because they have made it their own) in a form more suitable for our purpose than that of the first-hand thinkers." (p. 178)

"The children must enjoy the book. The ideas it holds must each make that sudden, delightful impact upon their minds, must cause that intellectual stir, which mark the inception of an idea. The teacher's part in this regard is to see and feel for himself, and then to rouse his pupils by an appreciative look or word; but to beware how he deadens the impression by a flood of talk." (p. 178)

"the labour of thought is what his book must induce in the child. He must generalise, classify, infer, judge, visualise, discriminate, labour in one way or another, with that capable mind of his, until the substance of his book is assimilated or rejected, according as he shall determine; for the determination rests with him and not with his teacher." (p. 179)

"The simplest way of dealing with a paragraph or a chapter is to require the child to narrate its contents after a single attentive reading." (p. 179)

"The teacher's part is, in the first place, to see what is to be done, to look over the work of the day in advance and see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford; and then to set such questions and such tasks as shall give full scope to his pupils' mental activity." (p. 181)

"Let marginal notes be freely made, as neatly and beautifully as may be, for books should be handled with reverence. Let numbers, letters, underlining be used to help the eye and to save the needless fag of writing abstracts. Let the pupil write for himself half a dozen questions which cover the passage studied; he need not write the answers if he be taught that the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind to itself." (p. 181)

"let us be careful that our disciplinary devices, and our mechanical devices to secure and tabulate the substance of knowledge, do not come between the children and that which is the soul of the book, the living thought it contains."

"to quote the golden words of Milton: 'Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was, whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. [...]'" (p. 181) (So that's where the idea of living books came from! - np)

School Education Chapter 15: School-Books

This blog post is part of an on-going daily series this month as I read (very quickly) through School Education by Charlotte Mason. Join me! Pick up your book and read a chapter, or find it free online at Ambleside Online.

Summary

What kind of school books should our children use? Their spiritual life (the life of thought, of feeling, of the soul) is only sustained by a diet of living ideas. 

Sadly, most regular school books are devoid of living thought and contain nothing but dry facts. To compensate for this, teachers give oral lessons. It is possible for living ideas to pass from teacher to student this way, but only when the teacher has vital interest and original thought on his subject. We can't expect teachers to have this kind of living interest in all of the wide feast of knowledge and ideas that we owe to our children. The teacher's job is really to be a guide, not the fount of all knowledge.

"And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children." (p. 171)

Children are persons: intelligent, observant, logical, spiritual beings like ourselves. Our job is to inspire them with living ideas and to help them form good habits resting on these ideas. We cannot do this on our own, but the Holy Spirit is our helper. He is the supreme Educator in all things both (so-called) secular and sacred.

Quotes

"It cannot be too often said that information is not education." (p. 169)

"The question is not,--how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education--but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?" (p. 171)

"And children have not altered. This is how we find them--with intelligence more acute, logic more keen, observing powers more alert, moral sensibilities more quick, love and faith and hope more abounding; in fact, in all points like as we are, only more so; but absolutely ignorant of the world and its belongings, of us and our ways, and, above all, of how to control and direct and manifest the infinite possibilities with which they are born." (p. 172)

"...we perceive that the great work of education is to inspire children with vitalising ideas as to every relation of life, every department of knowledge, every subject of thought; and to give deliberate care to the formation of those habits of the good life which are the outcome of vitalising ideas." (p. 173)