Historical fiction is one of the best ways to take moments of history and bring them alive. This is especially true in the school years when history is far too often presented by mostly meaningless to our kids facts and dates. Instead, letting them dive into a book and experiencing events through the eyes of someone living it makes it real. Emotions. Consequences. Reactions. All of becomes something relatable. Plus, it’s a handy place to spark a deeper interest in learning more about what those characters experienced. (And to learn how true the book was to reality.)
Learn more about why teaching with historical fiction is great!
Dear Canada Book Series
Dear Canada is a book series written by a group of different Canadian authors and published by Scholastic Canada. It features 37 different stories focusing events throughout our history. Unlike traditional books which follow a character through the plot, these books are unique in that they are told in a diary format, written in the words of a young girl living through the experience. We get to meet their families and friends, take a peek at their daily lives, and learn more about how each of the moments of history that they live through impacts them. It’s a personal perspective to portray Canadian history.
When I asked for insight from the homeschooling community, one mom told me: “My nine year old is absolutely addicted to the ‘Dear Canada’ series of books. Because the history is presented in the form of a story, from the perspective of a child, my daughter is retaining a surprising amount of history. And she’s just reading them for pleasure…no formalized “lesson” involved.”
Topics covered include:
- The Underground Railroad
- The Spanish Flu Epidemic
- Les Filles Du Roi
- The Titanic
- Residential Schools
- The Great Depression
- The Holocaust
- Gold Rush
- The Acadian Exile
- Japanese Internment
- and many more.
Several of the books have been shortlisted, commended, or won various awards for their historical coverage, cultural perspectives, and writing.
If you want to expand on the learning aspect, you can also purchase teacher’s guides which provide extended learning on each topic, offer discussion questions, and present activities like creating job ads or trying to make your own homemade butter. Scholastic’s Dear Canada website itself offers free recipes and crafts, an interactive timeline throughout Canadian history, outlines to write your own Dear Canada diary, and more. A really help extra can be the free discussion guides for each book available on the website as well.
I Am Canada Book Series
A companion series to the Dear Canada books which feature young men as the primary characters instead of young women is the I Am Canada series.
This book collection has 13 books, each written by different authors and published by Scholastic Canada. These books are presented in story format instead of diaries and heads through some extremely challenging periods of time, especially around various wars and expeditions. These include both world wars, the war of 1812, and the Franklin expedition. Real maps, photos, and other primary resources add to these books in creating a first hand experience.
The tagline for these books is: Adventure. Danger. Duty. Fear.
They are geared to readers ages 9 and up and offer a pretty interesting perspective into what life was like for young men throughout history.
Discussion questions are provided free for each book on the website to add some extra learning opportunities.
Curious about how to read these books in chronological order? Here’s a list for both book series. (Current as of February 2024).
This post was originally written in 2010 and has been updated in 2024 to include the current number of available books and book list.
LOVE TO LEARN WITH LIVING BOOKS? CHECK OUT THIS LIST FULL OF FICTION BOOKS ABOUT CANADIAN HISTORY.
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Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. We love reading historical fiction together and these books are great. Thank you again!