Kidmonton: True Stories of River City Kids

Liz Dennett is a public service librarian in the Science and Technology
Library at the University of Alberta.

Kidmonton is a collection of 26 stories about children living in
Edmonton from 8,000 years ago to the present day. They were written as
part of a larger project to celebrate the city of Edmonton’s
centennial in 2004. Though dramatized by the author, they are all based
on real people and recorded events. The more recent accounts were told
directly to the author; many of the older ones were found in the
Edmonton Archives. Each story is illustrated by a black-and-white
drawing and supported by a historical note at the back of the book.

A good mixture of cultures and backgrounds are represented. Some of the
stories depict major local events—such as the tornado that hit
Edmonton in 1987, the 1915 flood, and the government taking back the
Papaschase reserve land around 1877—through a child’s eyes. Other
stories are about individual children’s important memories, such as a
young girl’s new shoes from her teacher during the Depression and a
Ukrainian pioneer family’s trip down the river to find an unclaimed
piece of land. Together the stories form a timeline of Edmonton’s
history, but at two to three pages each, they are a little short for the
reader to become fully engaged in the children’s lives. Recommended
with reservations.