SOURCE: "Footnotes in Canadian History," in Canadian Children's Literature, No. 72, 1993, pp. 78-80.

In the following review, Henderson criticizes Berton's Canadian historical series for children, arguing that many of the titles deal with events and issues only marginally significant in Canadian history.

Pierre Berton's series of popular history books for twelve-to fourteen-year-olds, "Adventures in Canadian History," keeps expanding, even as their "Canadian content" shrinks. While earlier titles in the series chronicled significant moments in the building of a nation (notably Berton's four books on The War of 1812), some of the more recent ones have had little to do with Canada at all. For example, Dr. Kane of the Arctic Seas, the third in the "Exploring the North" series, tells the story of an American from Philadelphia who searches for a lost Englishman in the seas off the Greenland coast. The connection with Canada is tenuous at best.

Indeed, it...