Canada From Eh to Zed consists of four books each with 26 short, self-contained articles, and each starting with a different letter of the alphabet. For example, “Algonquin Park” begins Book One’s Things and ends with “Zippers and Other Inventions”, “Lake Louise” is in the middle of Book Two’s Places, and “Zones of Standard Time” ends Book Four’s Events. Each article is nearly two pages long, completely Canadian, and begins with a simple illustration. It is followed by three pages of questions and activities, ranging from vocabulary and short-answer comprehension questions to discussion questions and, usually, a word puzzle. These books are designed for pulling apart and reproducing and include the answer keys.

The flexibility of the books’ design is a real advantage. Some instructors use one article that would work with a current unit; thus, they would copy that article and use it with the whole class. In my class, I made a single copy of each selection and let students choose the topics of interest to them.

They liked the wide range of topics and enjoyed learning about Canadian subjects. For example, many people chose to read about the Dionne quintuplets, hockey figures and famous Canadian rock stars. Of the four books, the People book seemed to be the most popular, but students found appealing articles from all four categories. The illustrations are a bit elementary in appearance; however, they do provide the reader with helpful contextual clues.

I found these books appropriate for student discussion; students summarised the article they had read, and then the entire class became involved in every topic chosen. In this way, the lively journalistic style of the articles was recognized, and even struggling readers found them rewarding and meaningful. What I liked best about Canada From Eh to Zed is that the content was Canadian and that it was relevant. This kind of contextualized learning allowed the comprehension and word work to be integrated into a more meaningful whole that the students greatly enjoyed.