During the Second World War, hundreds of children were sent from the UK to stay with family and friends in Canada as “war guests.” This book collects the letters of one such war guest, young W.A.B (Alec) Douglas, who wrote from his wartime home in Toronto to his mother back home in London. Alec wrote home every week, although sometimes he forgot to post his letters, and they were delayed, and some letters did not get through. Occasionally his godmother and host, Mavis Fry, would add comments and write her own more detailed letters. Also included are letters from Lillian Kingston, who brought Alec to North America in 1940. This is a story of exposure, at an impressionable age, to ocean passage in wartime, the sights and sounds of New York, the totally new and unfamiliar world of Canada, the wonderful excitement of passage home in a Woolworth Aircraft Carrier as a "Guest of the Admiralty," and his eventful return to a world he had left behind three years before. A War Guest in Canada includes a foreword by Cynthia Comacchio and an introduction by Roger Sarty.

The experiences of a young girl and her small brother who are evacuated to Canada at the beginning of World War II and find that they will be staying with complete strangers.

When a frightened girl and boy arrive on the Twiss family's doorstep to escape the Blitz, Charlotte wonders how she will keep her war guests from missing their parents back home, or from cowering every time a plane flies overhead. Though the war is being waged across the Atlantic, Charlotte begins to feel its danger, as her brother George defies their parents and enlists in the Navy. After months of receiving letters from overseas, suddenly there is no word from him -- has the unthinkable happened and George's ship been sunk by a German submarine? Charlotte Twiss's diary shows her innermost feelings about her life on the Canadian homefront, as she helps her war guests "settle in" and wonders whether her brother is safe from harm.

Sky Is Falling It is the summer of 1940, and all of England fears an invasion by Hitler’s army. Still, ten-year-old Norah Stoakes is shocked when her parents decide to send her and her younger brother Gavin to Canada as war guests. Travelling across the ocean is an adventure, but Norah’s new life in Canada is a bigger challenge than she ever expected. Until, that is, Norah discovers a surprising responsibility that helps her accept her new country and her new home. Looking at the Moon Norah has lived in Canada with the Ogilvies for three years when an Ogilvie cousin comes to spend the summer. Andrew is nineteen, handsome and intelligent, and Norah thinks she may be falling in love for the first time. But even now the war threatens to ruin her happiness... The Lights Go on Again It has been five years since Norah and Gavin arrived in Canada and now that the war is ending, they will soon be going back to England. Norah is eager to see her parents again, but ten-year-old Gavin barely remembers them. He doesn’t want to leave his Canadian family, his two best friends and his dog. Then something happens that forces Gavin to make the most difficult decision of his life.

A Nation at War brings together a collection of sixty-two essays covering all aspects of the Canadian experience in the Second World War. It is a readable and authoritative introduction to both the historical narrative and the interpretive debates by the best selling author of Fields of Fire and Cinderella Army. Published by the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies and distributed by Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

It's 1943 and World War II is raging. 15-year-old Robert Tourond is home in Calgary, but his three brothers are all fighting the Nazis. Robert follows the exploits of his favourite comic book heroes who also battle bad guys in the comics Robert spends his allowance on. When Robert finds a meteorite in Nose Hill Park near his home, in the same week that a meteorite features in his heroes' stories, Robert is convinced that a magical link exists between them, adn that the superheroes will protect his brothers. Robert has a nemesis of his own on the streets of Calgary - a girl they call "Crazy Charlie." When Robert gets a job delivering telegrams, Charlie does too, cutting into his profits. Then they discover exactly what those telegrams they're delivering have for the recipients. Then Charlie has to deliver one to Robert's house. Can Robert and his heroes really protect all three brothers and bring them home? What will happen if reality comes crashing into his world, like a meteorite falling from space? Who will help then?

Cold War Comforts examines Canadian women’s efforts to protect children’s health and safety between the dropping of the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima in 1945 and the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Amid this global insecurity, many women participated in civil defence or joined the disarmament movement as means to protect their families from the consequences of nuclear war. To help children affected by conflicts in Europe and Asia, women also organized foreign relief and international adoptions. In Canada, women pursued different paths to peace and security. From all walks of life, and from all parts of the country, they dedicated themselves to finding ways to survive the hottest periods of the Cold War. What united these women was their shared concern for children’s survival amid Cold War fears and dangers. Acting on their identities as Canadian citizens and mothers, they characterized with their activism the genuine interest many women had in protecting children’s health and safety. In addition, their activities offered them a legitimate space to operate in the traditionally male realms of defence and diplomacy. Their efforts had a direct impact on the lives of children in Canada and abroad and influenced changes in Canada’s education curriculum, immigration laws, welfare practices, defence policy, and international relations. Cold War Comforts offers insight into how women employed maternalism, nationalism, and internationalism in their work, and examines shifting constructions of family and gender in Cold War Canada. It will appeal to scholars of history, child and family studies, and social policy.

Social Policy and Practice in Canada: A History traces the history of social policy in Canada from the period of First Nations’ control to the present day, exploring the various ways in which residents of the area known today as Canada have organized themselves to deal with (or to ignore) the needs of the ill, the poor, the elderly, and the young. This book is the first synthesis on social policy in Canada to provide a critical perspective on the evolution of social policy in the country. While earlier work has treated each new social program as a major advance, and reacted with shock to neoliberalism’s attack on social programs, Alvin Finkel demonstrates that right-wing and left-wing forces have always battled to shape social policy in Canada. He argues that the notion of a welfare state consensus in the period after 1945 is misleading, and that the social programs developed before the neoliberal counteroffensive were far less radical than they are sometimes depicted. Social Policy and Practice in Canada: A History begins by exploring the non-state mechanisms employed by First Nations to insure the well-being of their members. It then deals with the role of the Church in New France and of voluntary organizations in British North America in helping the unfortunate. After examining why voluntary organizations gradually gave way to state-controlled programs, the book assesses the evolution of social policy in Canada in a variety of areas, including health care, treatment of the elderly, child care, housing, and poverty.

In the spring of 1940 Canada sent hundreds of highly trained volunteers to serve in Britain's Royal Air Force as it began a concerted bombing campaign against Germany. Nearly half of them were killed or captured within a year. This is the story of one of those airmen, as told through his own letters and diaries as well as those of his family and friends. Joey Jacobson, a young Jewish man from Westmount on the Island of Montreal, trained as a navigator and bomb-aimer in Western Canada. On arriving in England he was assigned to No. 106 Squadron, a British unit tasked with the bombing of Germany. Joey Jacobson’s War tells, in his own words, why he enlisted, his understanding of strategy, tactics, and the effectiveness of the air war at its lowest point, how he responded to the inevitable battle stress, and how he became both a hopeful idealist and a seasoned airman. Jacobson's written legacy as a serviceman is impressive in scope and depth and provides a lively and intimate account of a Jewish Canadian's life in the air and on the ground, written in the intensity of the moment, unfiltered by the memoirist's reflection, revision, or hindsight. Accompanying excerpts from his father's diary show the maturation of the relationship between father and son in a dangerous time.