Picture Books — Review

A Bloom of Friendship:
The Story of the Canadian Tulip Festival

by Anne Renaud
illustrated by Ashley Spires
Lobster Press, 2004
ISBN 1-894222-89-X
$19.95
24 pp, hc, colour illustrations, ages 8 – 11
www.lobsterpress.com

Reading this book is the next best thing to visiting a war museum for learning about World War II.  It is full of interesting archival photos, easy to understand timelines, reproductions of newspaper headlines and Instant History Facts set apart in boxes, as well as explanatory text and illustrations. Colourful and interesting in lay-out, the book is designed especially for children in the middle elementary school grades, to explain why Canada has a Tulip Festival in Ottawa each year.

It tells the story of the Nazi invasion of Holland and how Princess Juliana and her children fled to Canada for safety, and how Canadian troops helped to liberate Holland. After the war was over, Princess Juliana presented Canada with 100 000 tulip bulbs in appreciation for everything the country had done to help the Dutch people. Every year since, 20 000 tulip bulbs have been sent to Canada and planted in and around Ottawa, creating a spectacular display of blooms in the spring.

As the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2005, this is an important book, because the veterans of the war are now in their 80s or beyond, and their memories will soon be lost to us. Teachers could use this book in the days leading up to Remembrance Day to facilitate learning about this terrible period of world history. It would be great for reading aloud and discussing, but children will also pick it up to soak up the tidbits of information they find on its pages.

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