Beryl Young

2011 Red Maple non-fiction nominee

Author’s Booking Service is pleased to announce that children’s author Beryl Young of Vancouver is now scheduling visits to Toronto and Ottawa schools in May 2011 to coincide with her visit to Toronto for the Forest of Reading festivities. Beryl’s book Charlie: a Home Child’s Life in Canada is nominated for the Red Maple non-fiction award.

Her rate is $250 for one session, $400 for two, $650 for three sessions in one day, plus public transportation from Toronto. A $30 flat fee per session towards accommodation applies. No travel charges within the GTA or the Ottawa area. A driver/escort would be appreciated between school visits.

Beryl is a member of The Writers' Union of Canada; schools wishing to invite her may be eligible for a travel and fee subsidy to offset the cost of her visit. Contact us for details of this program. 

Beryl’s three award-winning books are about ordinary kids who have extraordinary or challenging things happen to them. Students who like that kind of story will enjoy her author presentations. She speaks to student groups as well as teacher/librarians at PD days and conferences. 

Published Works

Follow the Elephant, Ronsdale Press, 2010

Charlie: a Home Child’s Life in Canada, Key Porter Books, 2009

Wishing Star Summer, Raincoast Books, 2001

I enjoy speaking across the country to students as well as teacher/librarians. When talking about the writer's life I include all my books, but talks can be tailored to cover any one book for specific interests. All sessions will help teachers use the books to meet curriculum requirements. Teacher's Guides and follow-up activities are available as handouts.

I speak for an hour to Grade 5-8 students (in groups of up to 60) and to larger groups of adults (up to 200). Often I'm invited to visit a school for a day to give two or three presentations to different classes. For larger groups, I have a Power Point presentation with 40 slides of photographs and archival documents.

Home Children - a forgotten piece of our Canadian immigration history

Imagine it’s one hundred years ago and you are thirteen years old, living with your family in England. When your father dies suddenly your mother must send her children to orphanages. Then imagine how it would feel to be called into the orphanage office and told you are being sent across the ocean to Canada.

That’s what happened to my father and that’s what I write about in Charlie: a Home Child’s Life in Canada. I grew up knowing very little of my father’s story and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I began to research his life.

I learned that Charlie was sent to work on Ontario farms where he experienced homesickness, hardship and eventually kindness as he grew into a healthy eighteen year old. When WWI broke out he joined the army and was wounded in France. Back in Canada, Charlie joined the RCMP and had many adventures policing across the country.

My father was just one of 100,000 British Home Children sent to Canada between 1870 and 1948. I feel proud of how brave he was, and I hope my book honours the courageous journeys of all the children who came alone to this land of ours.

A Power Point presentation with photographs and archival material enriches the talk about this forgotten piece of Canadian immigration history.

During the presentation students talk about their own family histories, debate the ethics of sending unsupervised young children to Canada, and what it means to be a Canadian. Research techniques are discussed to help students with their own projects.

Teacher Guides:

Excellent Teacher Guides, including activity sheets and marking rubrics are available for Ontario Grades 5-8 studies in Canadian History, Citizenship and Immigration. Download here. 

Follow-up activities include encouraging students to:

- undertake interviews with family members to discover their life stories

- read about the Canadian Expeditionary Force and the Battle of the Somme in World War One.

- find out the requirements for a person to become a Canadian citizen now? Why didn’t Charlie have any of these regulations?

- write about lives of children in the Barnardo’s Home in 1911. Describe the reaction of the boys when they are told they’ll be leaving for Canada. What do they know about Canada? What would you tell them to expect?

- write a journal or a Face book entry pretending to be thirteen when your mother has just told you she has to send you to an orphanage. If you could only take one treasure, what would you take with you? Reading the book, students will see what Charlie took.

- find out what is needed now for a child to be adopted in Canada. Make a list of the many regulations and compare it to what Charlie needed to come to Canada.

Equipment and other requirements

The only technical equipment required is a projector for a Power Point presentation.

I appreciate having classroom teachers or librarians present during an author visit.