At Vimy Ridge is a natural follow-up to Toronto editor and author Hugh Brewster’s successful On Juno Beach. The storming of Vimy Ridge on Easter Monday, 1917, is generally accepted as a defining moment in the development of Canadian national identity, and this book does a fine job of placing it in context for younger readers.

Beginning with the outbreak of war, Brewster leads the reader through the formation of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and its baptism of fire at Ypres and on the Somme. The heart of the book charts the meticulous preparations for the battle and the attack itself. There are spreads on the novel artillery techniques used, mining beneath the enemy trenches, and the battle for the skies above. The last few pages cover the Armistice, the significance of Vimy, and the famous memorial.

As with On Juno Beach, the book is attractively designed and rich in photographs, paintings, and explanatory maps. The informative and readable text is given a personal dimension by the scattered quotes from letters, the most poignant being a farewell from a young Vancouver lieutenant written the day before he was killed. For those who want to go farther, there is a short bibliography of books and websites, an index, and a glossary.

It would be nice to have a bit more information on the background of some of the illustrations, such as those on the endpapers, but this is the quibble of a fanatic. The photographs are very well chosen and Brewster doesn’t shy away from the grim ones. For example, the advancing Canadians on pages 34 and 35 (above) are usually reproduced with the foreground corpses airbrushed out. Here they are not.

At Vimy Ridge is a splendid introduction to a major event in Canadian history, and Brewster has created another valuable historical resource for teachers and students. Few copies will sit for long on library shelves.