Thursday 15 June 2017

Book ~ "Now You Know Canada: 150 Years of Fascinating Facts" (2017) Doug Lennox

From Goodreads ~ Just in time for Canada's 150th birthday comes this collection of the best in Canadian questions and answers, covering history, famous Canadians, sports, word origins, geography, and everything in between. 

In these pages, you'll learn the answers to questions like: 

  • Where did the word Canuck come from?
  • How did an aristocratic French girl become a Canadian Robinson Crusoe? 
  • What famous explorer played hockey in the Arctic? 
  • Who was the first black woman elected to Canada's Parliament? 
  • What unlikely team beat Canada for the gold medal for hockey in the 1936 Winter Olympics? 
  • How did the Halifax Explosion occur?

I'm always interested in learning more about Canada.  "Now You Know Canada" provides 150 facts in celebration of Canada's 150th birthday this year.

The chapters include:
  • O Canada!
  • Policy-makers and ground-breakers
  • Rebellions
  • Canada at war
  • Heroes and legends
  • Prodigies of science, invention and medicine
  • Canadian disasters
  • Intrepid explorers
  • Entertain me
  • The old ball game (baseball)
  • Gridiron history (football)
  • Canada's game (hockey)
  • The beautiful game .. now in Canada (soccer)
  • Scoops on Canadian hoops (basketball)
  • Canada's other national game (lacrosse)
  • Rocks and rolls (curling)
  • Making a splash (swimming)
  • Olympic feats
  • More champions of Canadian sport

There was interesting information and trivia.  I found it was really sports heavy, though ... half the book covers various sports.  While I found some of it interesting, I was less interested in the sports stories and would have liked to have read more about entertainment, disasters, heroes, etc.  

The information is laid out in easily digestible chunks.  It would have been nice to have had more pictures to break up all the text (there were just a couple pictures).

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