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Dear Canada

Cher Journal: Terre d'Accueil, Terre d'Espoir: Onze Récits

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Terre d'accueil, terre d'espoir est une compilation de nouvelles par certains des meilleurs auteurs jeunesse canadiens. Aussi ?mouvant qu'instructif, chaque r?cit raconte la force indomptable et le courage n?cessaires pour affronter les difficult's inh?rentes ? l'arriv?e dans un nouveau pays. Les jeunes lecteurs s'attacheront aux personnages - comme Miriam, rescap?e du ghetto de Varsovie et r?unie avec sa famille ? Montr?al, ou Wong Joe-on, un jeune immigrant chinois en proie au racisme dans une petite ville de la Saskatchewan - et suivront avec ?motion le r?cit de leurs r?ussites comme de leurs difficult?s. Racont's ? la premi?re personne, ces r?cits pr?sentent des gar?ons et des filles ? des moments diff?rents de l'histoire du Canada. Cette nouvelle terre ne se montre pas toujours aussi accueillante qu'ils ne se l'imaginaient. Terre d'accueil, terre d'espoir comprend des histoires de Jean Little, Kit Pearson, Brian Doyle, Paul Yee, Irene N. Watts, Ruby Slipperjack, Afua Cooper, Rukhsana Khan, Marie- Andr?e Clermont, Lillian Boraks-Nemetz et Shelley Tanaka.


This next instalment in the best-selling Cher journal series introduces the reader to brave new Canadians that faced struggles, loss, racism and discrimination in the hope of creating a new home. Terre d'accueil, terre d'espoir is an engaging collection of short stories that includes contributions by eleven amazing Canadian children's authors. These narratives will pull at your heartstrings while opening your eyes to a world of undaunted strength, and courage amid the hardships that come with landing in a new country.

Terre d'accueil, terre d'espoir includes stories by Jean Little, Kit Pearson, Brian Doyle, Paul Yee, Irene N. Watts, Ruby Slipperjack, Afua Cooper, Rukhsana Khan, Marie-Andr?e Clermont, Lillian Boraks-Nemetz and Shelley Tanaka.

Original title: Dear Canada: Hoping for Home

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

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501 people want to read

About the author

Lillian Boraks-Nemetz

9 books4 followers

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5 stars
54 (25%)
4 stars
66 (30%)
3 stars
78 (36%)
2 stars
14 (6%)
1 star
2 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
Profile Image for Megan.
59 reviews2 followers
June 11, 2018
Easy read
Too many different stories, just as I get into one it ends
Profile Image for Meghan.
620 reviews30 followers
July 19, 2020
Too many of the stories were events covered by Dear Canada in separate books so they felt unoriginal. Several didn't go with the theme of the collection. "Entrance Certificate" made absolutely no sense. As I usually find with short stories, I couldn't develop an interest in the characters.

The most interesting thing is that "The Charleston on the Trapline" is about Violet Pesheen's grandmother, Insy Pimash. This collection was published five years before These are My Words, so I wonder how long they had it planned.
Profile Image for Renaissance.
46 reviews
July 29, 2011
interesting different arrivals some funny some sarcastic some very sad
Profile Image for Shanelle.
41 reviews
August 15, 2012


Another book from the Dear Canada series, this time featuring a collection of short stories by popular children's writers. Hoping for Home includes short stories featuring male main characters, which provides a different outlook from the traditional female main characters.
Profile Image for Shanelle.
118 reviews1 follower
July 2, 2016
Hoping for Home is a great read, especially for those interested in learning more about Canadian history, without having to commit to reading one long story. The diverse short stories in this book, as well as their historical background, make this book a must read, especially for Canada Day! ;)
Profile Image for JennLynn.
596 reviews16 followers
October 20, 2011
A collection of stories about immigrants to Canada. They come from different eras and different locations and sometimes the journey is within Canada.
Profile Image for Twyla.
1,766 reviews61 followers
July 6, 2012
My favorite story was:To learn...even a little.It was my favorite because it was most interesting and I like interesting books and stories.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Amanda Graham.
7 reviews
July 19, 2019
I love the stories in this book but the reason why i gave it three stars is cause i rather have 1 whole story instead of 11 different small stories.
Profile Image for LobsterQuadrille.
1,103 reviews
May 15, 2021
2.5 stars

Now that I've finally re-read this Dear Canada collection, my main takeaway from it is that the diary format is probably even trickier to work with in short story form. Some of the stories made it work pretty well, but with most there wasn't enough harmony of exposition and action to create an impactful ending. Before I get more into what didn't work for me, here are the most successful stories from this anthology:

-To Get Away From All That(by Rukhsana Khan): Storyline and character work are good.
-Prairie Showdown(by Paul Yee): A very strong story, by far the best one here. I'd like to read some more of Yee's work sometime.
-To Learn... Even a Little(by Afua Cooper): The narration can be too stilted and distant, but the plot and resolution work well.
-Hattie's Home(by Jean Little): One of the best endings in the collection.

Most of the other stories were either one-note and forgettable or struggled to fit an overly broad historical context into such a brief format. "Ghost Town" is the most obvious example of the latter case. It follows two Japanese-Canadian sisters during World War II, and their different impressions of the long trip to a detention camp similar to the ones where Japanese-Americans were forced to stay during the same era. But the story ends as they are moving in to the camp housing, with no resolution at all. This story also had confusing POV changes. At first I couldn't tell when the POV changed at all until I noticed the each of the sisters' entries had slightly different font. I don't really blame the author for this; an editor or someone really should have made it more clear when the POV was about to switch.
My least favorite story was "Entrance Certificate". The intro blurb to this tale pointedly says that the author likes to make his readers read between the lines, which is all well and good if said lines have any consistency or plot value. Instead, the main character Penman's story has lots of inane one-off observations that just feel like wasted words for such a brief format. It comes off as muddled and aimless and has nothing to do with the anthology theme, not even in a figurative sense.

Mild nostalgia makes me want to go easy on Hoping for Home, but it's a very uneven group of stories and most of them are sadly forgettable. It's not a horrible book, but I think my copy will soon be on its way to a nice new home.

Profile Image for Sophia.
32 reviews
October 14, 2022
Some of the stories were very good, but some (like the Penman's Journal) I found very disjointed and hard to follow. I know they're meant to be "short" stories but some felt like they just didn't have enough of a story to be engaging
133 reviews
June 30, 2023
I don’t like reading short stories but I loved reading this collection of fictional historical vignettes in Canada. My parents immigrated from Austria in 1954 to Canada. I thoroughly enjoyed the diversity and the stories of their experiences.
Profile Image for Meredith.
142 reviews
September 6, 2022
Favourite story: Hattie's Home
Least favourite story: Entrance Certificate
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews

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