I received this educational book for free through Goodreads First Reads. Nine-year-old Alice is taking a trip across Canada with her grandmother and her younger brother who brings along the pet hamster.

The fictitious book is focused toward children, providing many colorful illustrations, with humor and trivia interspersed between the more usual facts. The pacing should help keep the attention of children. The illustrations can include information and humor, as can the handwritten notes, so be sure not to overlook them. The hamster updates should appeal to children.

As an example of the humor, when they are starting their trip in the first chapter, "Rules for Well-Behaved Grandchildren" are given:
"1. No whining.
2. No asking 'Are we there yet?' (If you do, I will start to sing opera. Loudly.)
3. No wildlife in the car. Except hamsters.
4. Feed the driver cookies."
The "Except hamsters" is a handwritten addition after it is discovered that Cal has brought their pet hamster along on the trip.

The usual facts include information such as province nicknames, capital cities, native wildlife and plants, important sites, history, and local activities. Pronunciations for foreign-derived words are provided, such as "kay-lay" for ceilidh. Examples of trivia include that the ice in the icebergs along the coast can be ten thousand years old and that the pioneers ate tails of beavers. The book also includes a tweet from Cal in every chapter.

It was fun to learn the trivia and easy to read. It only provides basic facts, since it is aimed for children and not planned to be in-depth. ( )

Alice, Cal, and Gran are taking a road trip across Canada, visiting every province. Their journey is documented primarily by Alice ("reporting from the backseat") with tweets, poems, and other interjections from Cal and Gran interspersed. I loved the often subtle humor (especially Gran's selective deafness) and I found the brief overview of each province both informative and enticing. Aside from a quick trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls almost two decades ago, I've never visited our northern neighbors, and this book made me want to. I don't know how much a Canadian child would get out of this text, but this ignorant American thought it was just delightful. ( )

This is a cute book to use as an introduction to Canada for 2nd-4th graders. It doesn't give a great deal of information, but it does make Canada sound like a really great place to visit. I would use the book to introduce a unit on Canada in the classroom or in homeschool, or I would have it available during said unit for the kids to browse through at their leisure. I enjoyed the light-hearted "banter" between the characters that kept the book from being just the facts. ( )

This book is okay, but quite a bit formulaic. It reads a bit like a textbook going through a checklist of facts with a forced storyline. I'd have prefered a story that happens to teach you about Canada. A few other issues I had, first it was very disappointing that it was primarily a tour of capitals. In each section it gives a quick fact or two about the province or territory as a whole, such as "Nova Scotia means 'New Scotland' in Latin" and "Cape Breton Island, at the north end...[is] hilly and windy. Waves crash against the sea cliffs. We went to a ceilidh...", then moves on to "[w]e are driving around...", takes a few seconds to look in a coal mine, without providing any context, specific location, history or explanation, and then the characters are at Halifax. As a tour of capitals, it provides a few sections about that, but still not much meat.

The highlights of Halifax were "the Citadel...a British fort that was built to defend...against French attackers...on a hill overlooking the city. The guards wear tartan kilts and furry hats...", then Halifax "[H]arbour is the oldest part of Halifax. At the Privateers' Warehouse, we learned about...pirates [that were actually privateers with permission]... from King George III." Then they're at Digby, which I assume is a beach, because they eat scallops, collect seashells, and built a sand fort, but the text doesn't say. Then they're at Port-Royal, which is "the first place where [Europeans] settled in Canada". It then gives a few lines about Samuel de Champlain and the poor living conditions. Then suddenly it's 100 years later and the English and French are fighting over Port-Royal and they're leaving Nova Scotia.

That's very disappointing. Maybe the author should take an actual roadtrip to do all these things with her kids or grandkids and then rewrite this book. She could then focus on the things that came up, what they learned while trying to experience these things, what fascinated the kids -- and their real music experiences (it seems to be a theme that they hate the music everywhere) -- and provide background occassionally. It would be a longer book, but much more pleasurable and memorable. I don't think I'll remember anything from this book except for the textbook feel of it, so essentially I didn't learn anything. How educational is that? ( )

Review originally published on my blog: AWordsWorth.blogspot.com
Book provided by publisher for review.

Nine year old Alice is the narrator for Hey Canada!, and she and her cousin Cal (who is 8) are taking a cross-country camping trip with Gran. To record their adventures and what they learn, Alice writes a blog - which is the main text of the book. But there are also tweets (factoids of Cal, who is apparently quite the trivia expert!), poems, and some great illustrations. Featuring a mix of actual photographs and quirky illustrations, Hey Canada! has something of a scrapbook feel to it - something I really appreciated.

Since Alice and Cal are taking this trip with Gran to learn about Canada, visiting every province and capital city (as well as a few other adventures along the way), readers learn about Canada alongside them. In keeping with the scrapbooky vibe, the information is broken down into newsy bits that give tantalizing introductions to all aspects of Canadian life: the history, the trivia, the flora and fauna. Presented in such a way, readers learn a ton of information, without feeling like they're being lectured. It's what I like to call "sneaky learning," if you know what I mean. But seriously: the story itself is fun, and the narrative linking all the "educational stuff" is a little hilarious at times. A Houdini-wannabe hamster, encounters with wildlife and local foods, and a really great family chemistry between Gran, Alice and Cal all make for a thoroughly enjoyable read. ( )