Every year on November 11th, Canadians pause to remember those who have served and sacrificed during times of conflict and war. These books encourage young readers to engage thoughtfully with what it means to reflect, remember, and give respect on Remembrance Day.
Picture Books
Muhammad's Recipe for Remembering
Written by Maidah AhmadIllustrated by Shruti Prabhu
Annick Press, 2024
978-1-77321-909-7
IL: Ages 4-7 RL: Grades 2-3
Muhammad wants to take part in his school’s assembly to honour veterans, but no one in his community, let alone his family, has been involved in the World Wars... have they? After discussions with his family and elders at his mosque, Muhammad starts to piece together his family’s lost history, and realizes that you don’t need a trophy or medal to remember those you’ve lost–it can be as simple as sharing a piece of roti.
Download the Educators' Guide and Colouring Sheets.
Mira and Baku
Written by Sara Truuvert
Illustrated by Michelle Theodore
Annick Press, 2023
978-1-77321-756-7
978-1-77321-756-7
IL: Ages 4-7 RL: Grades 2-3
With the help of a magical friend, a young girl searches for her missing father in this poignant story set during Japanese Canadian incarceration in World War II. It’s a week until Mira’s birthday, and she’s getting worried. Where is Papa? He has never missed her birthday before. When Mira’s friend Baku, a creature from Japanese folklore, offers to help, they journey over farmlands and forests, mountains and river mouths, gathering clues to Papa’s whereabouts—clues that echo Mira’s memories and overheard conversations in the camp where she lives with Mama.
Take a peek at the Educator's Guide or watch and learn how to draw Baku.
Girl Takes Drastic Step!: How Molly Lamb Bobak Became Canada's First Official Woman War Artist
Written by Jilian Dobson
Illustrated by Genevieve Simms
Nimbus Publishing, 2024
978-1-77471-278-8
978-1-77471-278-8
IL: Ages 4-8 RL: Grades 2-3
An inspiring picture book biography of the pioneering mid-century female visual artist and military officer who never gave up on her dream. Molly Lamb Bobak's uniquely crafted journal has allowed generations to understand what everyday life was like for Canadian women working as part of the war effort.
The Eleventh Hour
Written and illustrated by Jacques Goldstyn
Translated by Anne Louise Mahoney
Owlkids Books, 2018
978-1-77147-348-4
978-1-77147-348-4
IL: Ages 7-10 RL: Grades 2-3
Jim and Jules are childhood friends, born on the same day in the same village. All their lives, Jim has been first—born two minutes before Jules, always faster, always stronger. When the First World War breaks out in Europe, the two young men enlist in the fight with 30,000 other Canadians. On the Front, conditions aren’t epic and glorious but muddy and barbaric. Here, too, Jim is the first to attack. Jules is always two minutes behind: lagging in drills, missing the boat, handed chores instead of honors. On November 11, 1918, Jim and Jules are sent out to fight one last time. Jim, always first over the top of the trench, is shot and dies at 10:58am, two minutes before the Armistice takes effect at 11:00 am.
Junior & Intermediate Fiction
War Stories
Written by Gordon Korman Scholastic Inc., 2020
978-1-338-29022-6
978-1-338-29022-6
IL: Ages 8-12 RL: Grades 3-4
There are two things Trevor loves more than anything else: playing war-based video games and his great-grandfather Jacob, who is a true-blue, bona fide war hero. At the height of the war, Jacob helped liberate a small French village, and was given a hero's welcome upon his return to America.Now it's decades later, and Jacob wants to retrace the steps he took during the war -- from training to invasion to the village he is said to have saved. Trevor thinks this is the coolest idea ever. But as they get to the village, Trevor discovers there's more to the story than what he's heard his whole life, causing him to wonder about his great-grandfather's heroism, the truth about the battle he fought, and importance of genuine valor.
The Scout: Tommy Prince
Written by David A. Robertson Illustrated by Scott B. Henderson HighWater Press, 2014
978-1-55379-478-3
978-1-55379-478-3
IL: Ages 9-12 RL: Grades 4-5
A search down a wooded path for a well-hit baseball turns into an encounter between Pamela and a veteran soldier standing in front of a monument. The statue commemorates the heroism of Sgt. Tommy Prince, the most decorated Aboriginal soldier in Canada. Pamela is curious, and the veteran is happy to regale her with the story of the expert marksman and tracker, renowned for his daring and bravery in World War II and the Korean War. The Scout is one book in the Tales from Big Spirit series. Tales from Big Spirit is a unique seven-book graphic novel series that delves into the stories of seven great Indigenous heroes from Canadian history—some already well known and others who deserve to be.
Stealing Home
Written by J. Torres
Illustrated by David Namisaton Kids Can Press, 2021
978-1-5253-0334-0
978-1-5253-0334-0
IL: Ages 9-12 RL: Grades 4-5
Sandy Saito is a happy boy who reads comic books and is obsessed with baseball—especially the Asahi team, the pride of his Japanese Canadian community. But when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, his life, like that of every other North American of Japanese descent, changes forever. This emotionally gripping graphic novel weaves a fictional story into a historically accurate, thoroughly researched account of the events surrounding the internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II.
Watch an author interview.
Dear Peter, Dear Ulla
Written by Barbara Nickel Thistledown Press, 2021
978-1-77187-217-1
IL: Ages 8-12 RL: Grades 3-4
Dear Peter, Dear Ulla is an imaginative and beautifully crafted historical middle-grade novel about two cousins who have never met but have become fast friends through an exchange of letters—until the outbreak of World War Two interrupts their conversation. Ulla lives in Danzig, a city that has just been occupied by the Nazis, and Peter lives on a Mennonite farm in Saskatchewan. What had been an easy and entertaining connection between Peter, a talented pianist, and Ulla, who is gifted at drawing, becomes fraught with unthinkable questions. Are they supposed to consider each other enemies now that Canada and Germany are at war?
Young Adult Fiction
The Ribbon Leaf
Written by Lori Weber
Red Deer Press, 2022
978-0-88995-720-6
978-0-88995-720-6
IL: Ages 12 and up RL: Grades 7-8
In Nazi Germany, friendship between an Aryan German girl and a Jewish German girl is strictly verboten, and an act of kindness might mean death. Sabine and Edie have been best friends since Kindergarten. Then Kristallnacht hits in 1938, shattering Jewish shop windows, synagogues, and their friendship. The girls, who once dreamed of stardom together, now take different paths — Edie escapes to Canada, and Sabine remains to experience life in her Nazi-controlled southern German town, eventually rescuing and supporting Edie's beloved Papa who poses as Sabine's grandfather.
Who Owns the Clouds?
Written by Mario Brassard Illustrated by Gérard DuBois
Translated by Yvette Ghione Tundra Books, 2023
978-1-77488-021-0
Translated by Yvette Ghione Tundra Books, 2023
978-1-77488-021-0
IL: Ages 12 and up RL: Grades 7-8
A powerful and visually arresting fictional memoir of trauma, memory and hope in the aftermath of war.
Even though Mila is no longer a child, she is overcome by memories — memories of a childhood halfway between reality and dreaming, and not knowing which is which. In her dreams, Mila and her family leave their bombed village to stand in line for weeks on end, suitcases in hand, hoping to move on to better lives. But the memories of her uncle’s disappearance, and the approach of looming clouds, keep blurring the lines between past and present, real and unreal. How can Mila move forward? Perhaps if the clouds can remind her of where she’s from, they can also show her where to go . . .
Focus. Click. Wind.
Written by Amanda West Lewis Groundwood Books, 2023
978-1-77306-899-2
IL: Ages 13 and up RL: Grades 8-9
It's 1968, and the Vietnam War has brought new urgency to the life of Billie Taylor, a seventeen-year-old aspiring photojournalist. Billie is no stranger to risky situations, but when she attends a student protest at Columbia University with her college boyfriend, and the US is caught up in violent political upheaval, her mother decides to move the two of them to Canada. Furious at being dragged away from her beloved New York City to live in a backwater called Toronto, Billie doesn’t take her exile lightly. As her mother opens their home to draft evaders and deserters, Billie’s activism grows in new ways. Suddenly she has to ask herself some hard questions. How far will she go to be part of a revolution? Is violence ever justified? Or does standing back just make you part of the problem?
Shovels Not Rifles: A Novel
Written by Gloria Ann Wesley Formac Publishing, 2023
978-1-4595-0605-3
978-1-4595-0605-3
IL: Ages 13 and up RL: Grades 7-8
When Coloured men are finally allowed to enlist in the Canadian military, Will Coleman has a chance to make his late father proud, see the world and earn enough money to take care of his mother. Immediately after joining the No. 2 Construction Battalion, he learns that the members of Canada’s only all-Black battalion are not allowed to fight on the front lines. Instead, they are assigned the same forestry work they were doing at home. Not only that, Will is the target of racism and discrimination by superiors and many fellow soldiers who refuse to accept a “checkerboard army”. Alongside his fellow soldiers in the No. 2 Construction Battalion, Will slowly faces the harsh realities of the war—and the country he wanted to fight for.
Non-Fiction
Indigenous Peoples in the World Wars (Indigenous Peoples' Contributions to Canada)
Written by Simon Rose Beech Street Books, 2018
978-1-77308-351-3
978-1-77308-351-3
IL: Ages 7-8 RL: Grades 2-3
Indigenous Peoples have contributed to Canada in many ways. Indigenous artists illustrate their unique cultures through paintings, films, and music. Indigenous politicians fight for the rights of Indigenous Peoples everywhere. Indigenous athletes thrive in various sports, and Indigenous soldiers have left their homes to defend Canada in times of war. Indigenous Peoples' Contributions to Canada explores the influential role Indigenous Peoples have played throughout Canadian history and into the present.
Duty, Honour & Izzat: From Golden Fields to Crimson - Punjab's Brothers in arms in Flanders
Written by Steven Purewal Illustrated by Claude St. Aubin & Christopher Rawlins
Renegade Arts Entertainment, 2018
978-1-98890-347-7
978-1-98890-347-7
IL: Ages 11-13 RL: Grades 6-7
Why are certain histories covered, discussed and inquired about, while others remain hidden? Going beyond the old tropes of colonised histories, this book presents the Indo-Canadian community's pioneer experience within the events leading to the ejection of the Komagata Maru from Canadian waters in July 1914 and the subsequent outbreak of the Great War in August 1914. A great book to introduce Canadian youth to a more inclusive look at our history.
Righting Canada's Wrongs: The LGBT Purge and the Fight for Equal Rights in Canada (Righting Canada's Wrongs)
Written by Ken Setterington
James Lorimer, 2022
978-1-4594-1619-2
James Lorimer, 2022
978-1-4594-1619-2
IL: Ages 13 and ip RL: Grades 8-9
From the 1950s to 1980s, the Canadian government persecuted LGBTQ2+ employees and tried to erase them from the military, the RCMP and the civil service under the guise that they were a “security risk,” an event that became known as the LGBT Purge. Those who were suspected of being homosexual were put under government surveillance, interrogated and intimidated. In the 1980s, victims of the Purge fought back with a class-action suit against the government that helped shed light on the systemic discrimination that members of the LGBTQ2+ community faced from the government and the rest of society.
Genocide: Revised and Expanded Edition (Groundwork Guides)
Edited by Jane Springer Illustrated by Santiago Solís Groundwood Books, 2024
978-1-77306-760-5
IL: Ages 14 and up RL: Grades 9-10
At the end of the Second World War, with the establishment of the United Nations, the holding of the Nuremberg Trials and the adoption of the Genocide Convention, the international community assured itself that genocide would never happen again. But never again has become a meaningless phrase. This book asks why. It also asks, what is genocide? Where has it happened in the past? Who is being threatened by genocide today? And what can we do to prevent this terrible crime from recurring?