Hockeybat Harris

Annette Lindsay was a special education teacher in Toronto.

In the early forties many British children were shipped to safe countries for the duration of the war. This is the story of Hockeybat Harris, one of several hundred who came to Canada, thirty of whom were settled with families in Saskatchewan. Hockeybat swaggers into town pinging his cricket bat and his sharp retorts at the kindly ladies of the evacuee committee, the good-hearted family who takes him in, even the regular guys in grade 6 at Albert School.

After an abortive beginning with an elderly couple, Hockeybat is relocated with the Williams family and their only son Bob, who eagerly awaited a “brother” with whom to share the joys and sorrows of growing up in Saskatoon. Not so. Hockeybat wets the bed, steals, fights at the drop of a hat, and tries the patience of everyone in the family. Eventually, though, Hockeybat mellows, as he learns to skate, to share, and enjoy the blustery Canadian winter. By Christmas, after long-delayed news from his father in Egypt and a BBC message from his mother, he wows the audience at the school Christmas concert with his spiffy Gracie Fields imitation. As he gains acceptance and self-esteem, his “brotherhood” with Bob develops into a mutually comfortable relationship.

This story is suitable for children ten or older. It gives insight into the prejudices many Canadians felt towards the Germans, Jews, and the war itself. Issues such as Mackenzie King’s reluctance to help the Jews are mentioned in passing but do not become a central theme in the story. The Williams family is somewhat squeaky clean; nevertheless, a younger audience will find this tale of a British boy’s struggle for acceptance in a Canadian family funny and moving.