Curriculum Connections: Current Issues

"No one pays much attention to you if you don't have much to say, so there was no way I could have predicted what would happen when I stopped talking altogether."

Twelve-year-old Lewis Castorman is a master locksmith: there is no lock on earth that he is unable to open. He is therefore flattered when world-renowned chemist Ernst K. Grumpel invites him to his office in New York City and offers him a lock-picking assignment. His confidence quickly turns to dismay, however, when he learns this job will take him to Yellow Swamp in northern Alberta, the scene of a disastrous chemical spill a year earlier. He is also horrified to discover that Grumpel is utterly ruthless and, through his chemical inventions, can alter the rules of nature at his will.

Fourteen-year-old Casey Templeton has recently moved with his family to the southeastern Alberta town of Richford. One night Casey seeks refuge from a snowstorm in an abandoned farmhouse and stumbles upon his nearly frozen, unconscious science teacher, Mr. Deverell. Casey attempts to revive his teacher and searches the house for something to make a fire with. In the attic he makes a frightening discovery -- a sophisticated office filled with computers, a printer, and racist posters and flyers!

Fifteen-year-old Mackenzie Hill knows something is up when she arrives home to find her father making a home-cooked dinner, instead of his standard delivery pizza. But nothing prepares her for the bombshell announcement: Mackenzie and her dad, alone since the death of her mother a year ago, are moving to Jerusalem, where her father has taken a position as a visiting professor at a university.

Advance Praise for Doing the Continental:

"Everyone has opinions about the state of Canada-U.S. relations, but few have the knowledge to provide informed judgments. Professor Dyment happily falls into the latter category. While some of the prescriptions are controversial, this concise book has been carefully thought out and provides excellent grist for the Canadian policy mill. Doing the Continental is a must read for those interested in Canadian-American relations." Michael Kergin, Canada's Ambassador to the United States, 2000-2005

Canadians enjoy one of the most stable forms of democracy on the planet, but there is a crisis in their understanding of the role the Crown plays in their country.