Julie Lawson

Meet Emily Murdoch, who lives with her parents and her two sisters in Victoria, B.C., in 1896. On the other side of Victoria's James Bay Bridge is Chinatown, a world as different from Emily's as can be. Thousands of Chinese immigrants looking for a better life in Canada call it home, including Hing, Emily's family's cook. For Emily, the lure of Chinatown proves to be irresistible. One afternoon, on an adventure with her friends, she gets lost in its teeming streets. Now she is about to learn much more about Hing's life-and something more about her own.

Our Canadian Girl Emily

Erin 

I'm really loving going back and finishing off some of the series I read as a kid but grew out of. I adore the Our Canadian Girl series a lot. I think it is a great way to introduce and teach different areas and time periods in Canada's history to young kids through the eyes of someone like each of the girls this series features. I also like the topics that they cover. In Emily's story, for example, we get to learn about the Chinese immigrant community in Victoria in 1896 and the discrimination they faced. Even Emily, who makes friends with her family's Chinese cook's daughter, sees first hand what kind of racism (even if she can't identify it as racism) her new friend faces by her best friend's family alone. It's a great way to teach kids (both boys and girls, although this series is aimed towards girls, obviously) how history (and Canadian history specifically) hasn't always been so kind to everyone, but kindness has always existed no matter what time period you are in.

Our Canadian Girl Emily

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