Each one changes Canada a little
You don’t have to be a Vietnamese boat person or a Chilean fleeing Pinochet or a child from the Holocaust to realize that Canada has the space to absorb you and not only that, to transform you, writes Adrienne Clarkson
Adrienne Clarkson, The Ottawa Citizen
believe there is room for all of us in Canada because so many of us share the same kind of experiences. These experiences have been so powerful that they have become our background – our shared background. Whether we are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, black or white, if we lost everything and then were taken in and became citizens of Canada, we have found that this country has the space for us all. And by “space,” I don’t mean just physical space; I mean the space in the collective consciousness of every Canadian.
When I was growing up in Ottawa in the ’40s and ’50s, it was a small city of fewer than 100,000 people. There were a half a dozen public schools and a half a dozen high schools. It was really a small town. We had a familiarity with the people we lived among, and although our family, the Poys, came out of the blue into the cold Ottawa winter of 1942, we too became part of this small city.
It was a time of war, rationing, and limited housing as the city swelled with the bureaucracy necessary to guide a government in a wartime situation. I remember the temporary buildings that covered the grounds where the National Gallery now stands and around the Supreme Court. There was always a feeling that somehow this little city was able to cope with everything; and our family benefitted from that.
A Bloom of Friendship: The Story of the Canadian Tulip Festival
A BLOOM OF FRIENDSHIP:
THE STORY OF THE CANADIAN TULIP FESTIVAL
ANNE RENAUD
ILLUSTRATIONS: ASHLEY SPIRES
MONTRÉAL: LOBSTER PRESS,
2004. 24 P.
(MY CANADA)
ISBN 189422289X
AGES 6 TO 10
A Bloom of Friendship: The Story of the Canadian Tulip Festival
Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, has hosted the Tulip Festival since 1953. The festival stems from the gift in 1945 of thousands of tulips bulbs from the Queen of Holland to Canada. This giving of bulbs became a yearly thank you to our country for hosting Dutch Princess Juliana and her two daughters during the Second World War. A Bloom of Friendship: The Story of the Canadian Tulip Festival gives a general overview of the war, of the invasion of the Netherlands and of the life of the Dutch Royal family in Canada, including the birth of Princess Margriet in an Ottawa hospital. While the Royal family was safe in Canada, Dutch people in Holland suffered from hunger and cold at the hands of the Nazis, who took away most of the food. When Canadian troops liberated their country in the spring of 1945, they found a starving population. Many Canadian soldiers helped Dutch citizens to rebuild their houses and their country.
This non-fiction book is illustrated with colourful collages created by Ashley Spires. The textured, handmade paper makes for lively interior scenes and brings out the vivid colours of the Ottawa blooms in springtime. Maps, photographs and archival documents such as Dutch food coupons, Star of David badges, newspaper clippings and vintage postcards add historical interest to the book.
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