I am registering this book at the last minute for an Immigration themed mass release that I'm doing in a few hours! This book was not my first choice for inclusion in this mass release (mostly because I already have a few books from this series included in the release as well as another Loyalist book-- though that book deals with the experiences of Black Loyalists, and there were some differences), but I have just discovered that I'm short one book, and this one fits the overarching theme of Immigration Stories.

I have a collection of Dear Canada books myself, and this is a duplicate, purchased at a charity shop in my hometown of Cambridge, ON. I have read this book, though it was a long time ago and I don't remember it well at all; I have also bookcrossed another copy. I will copy and paste my thoughts from that book's journal here:

I've read this and I enjoyed it. One beef that I have with this series in general is that I think the tend to include things which are debatable/matters of opinion in the Historical Notes section, and state them as though they are facts. Anyway, I thought this was a pretty good read. I have some (non-combative) Loyalist ancestry myself, so the subject in general is somewhat of interest to me. I am also half Scottish (on the other side) and I enjoyed the MacDonald family's adherence to some of the old customs/ways of us Scots. I also found the diarist fairly easy to relate to because of various life circumstances that we had in common.

On July 1st, I plan to do my first mass release (albeit a small one). I plan to leave some immigration stories in Kitchener's Victoria Park, in the area around the bell tower with all the quotes and luggage sculptures, and I am including this book! Where possible, I will leave the books near quotes that relate to the stories.

Since before Canada was Canada, people have been coming here from lots of different places, in lots of different ways, and for lots of different reasons. Our history is not without mistakes or injustices, but I feel there is a lot that's worthy of celebration and pride as well. I have done my best, in these restricted times, to diversify the books I've chosen in terms of style and reading level, as well as in terms of times and cultures represented. Some are geared to kids, some to adults; some are fiction, some are non-fiction; some focus more on what happened in a person/character's life that led to them coming to Canada, some focus on building a life here, and some focus more on the journey itself; many have been written by immigrant authors. Some of these books were written a long time ago and may contain dated language/attitudes, but history was what it was so I've chosen not to automatically rule out books based on those factors. If you've found one of these books, I hope that you will enjoy it!

I left this book on a bench near the Gaukel Street entrance to the park-- the bench that has one of the Luggage Project tags on its foot space (it says "Heavy").

If you've found this book, thanks for picking it up and checking out its journal! If you're new to bookcrossing, welcome. We'd love it if you'd stick around with us a while. I really hope that you enjoy both this book and the whole bookcrossing experience! Happy Canada Day!


This book was released as part of a couple of different release challenges here on bookcrossing-- the "Canada Days" Release Challenge and the "There's No Place Like Home" Release Challenge.