Dear Prime Minister

Elizabeth Levin is a professor of psychology at Laurentian University.

This book is composed of some 150 letters (and a handful of drawings)
that schoolchildren have written to the prime minister, in some cases as
part of a school project. The letters range in length from a single
sentence to a few lines. While some express the child’s views about
Canadian politics, others are more straightforward, as we see in a
Manitoba youngster’s query, “What time is it in Ottawa?” A few
letters raise questions about homelessness or pollution, but most simply
ask what the PM does.

There is not much to recommend in this book. While it is by children,
it is not really for children and only some adults will be truly
entertained by the children’s ideas. As one child admits, she wrote
because she had to, not because she wanted to, and she didn’t have
anything to say. Not a first-choice purchase.