The Kid Line
- Publisher
- Groundwood Books Ltd
- Initial publish date
- Nov 2001
- Category
- Hockey, Post-Confederation (1867-)
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780888994325
- Publish Date
- Nov 2001
- List Price
- $16.95
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Where to buy it
Out of print
This edition is not currently available in bookstores. Check your local library or search for used copies at Abebooks.
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 5 to 8
- Grade: k to 3
- Reading age: 5 to 8
Description
The father of this book's young hero is a ticket scalper at Maple Leaf Gardens, which he helped to build before the war. As a young boy, the father attended the same school as the famous hockey stars the Conacher brothers, and even skated with them on occasion. Throughtout his life, the hero's dad has safeguarded the scrap book in which he documented the exploits of Big Train (Lionel) Conacher and Charlie Conacher, who played on the Kid Line for the Maple Leafs.
One night, as if by magic, Charlie Conacher appears, and the father and son end up joining him at the game. Later that night the boy has a wonderful dream in which he and his father and Charlie are on the ice at Maple Leaf Gardens.
As an adult the son continues to attend games at the Gardens occasionally bringing his by now very old father with him. Later, when the Gardens' doors are closed for good, they sometimes stand outside in the dark, remembering together.
About the authors
Teddy Jam (Matt Cohen) was the pseudonymous author of many wonderful children's books, including Night Cars (which Michele Landsberg called "the Canadian Goodnight Moon"), This New Baby, and The Year of Fire, The Stoneboat, The Kid Line and The Fishing Summer, now collected in the anthology How We Were. He was also a novelist who won the Governor General's Award for his last novel, Elizabeth and After.
ANGE ZHANG has illustrated many books for Groundwood, most notably his memoir of growing up during the Cultural Revolution, Red Land, Yellow River, which won the Bologna Ragazzi Award. A former designer for the National Opera Theater in Beijing, he now works as an animation artist. He lives in Toronto.
