Canada Invents

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

Canadians are inventive people. This is a fun book filled with a
selection of the most interesting Canadian inventions. Zaks, table
hockey, 3–D puzzles, crokinole, Java programming language, and the
McIntosh apple are just some of Canada’s famous inventions. Some of
our inventions are ancient, like the Inuit snow goggles. Some were born
of young people’s ingenuity, like 13-year-old Ziggy Zheng’s talking
glasses. There are new kinds of food products, new games, new machines.
Some—like the screw propeller—have had a huge impact; others—like
the automatically closing toilet lid—are not very practical.

Canada Invents even includes a few non-inventions, such as baseball
(which both Canada and the United States claim to have invented, but
which is really just an evolution of a game played in Europe). There are
other books about Canadian patents. This book, however, is written to
allow children to appreciate the inventiveness of Canadians. It is
up-to-date, and the content is designed to both educate and amuse. The
very readable text is often written as a story; other entries begin with
a question to catch the readers’ attention. The photos are drawn from
a number of sources and add to the reader’s understanding of the
inventions. The drawings are often whimsical and fun. Both children and
adults will enjoy this book. Highly recommended.