The Montreal of My Childhood

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

This is not a children’s book. Although the format is in the style of
most children’s books and de Thomasis’s illustrations show children
on every page, this is unquestionably a book for adults. In the book’s
preface, Quebec humorist Yvon Deschamps writes, “Suddenly, we see an
image and everything comes back. We are children again.” Great, maybe,
for the right adult reader, but possibly not so great for today’s kids
who may have trouble connecting to de Thomasis’s scent memories of
back alleys stinking of garbage and dead rats or the 1940 taste treat of
apples coated in roofing tar. Parents reading this work to their little
ones might also balk at explaining road apples (referred to in the text
as “dried turds”), which were de Thomasis’s childhood substitutes
for road hockey balls. The illustration of a little girl running home to
pee, one hand tightly clutching her crotch, will also catch some parents
flatfooted.

This book is a supreme example of the misconception that younger
generations want to hear about the childhoods of people from older
generations. It is also a superbly written and wonderfully illustrated
account of what life in postwar Montreal was like for working-class
children. Not recommended (for children).