These two new books are both about pro hockey, both are for young readers in primary to middle grades, both are also available in French, and both will have wide appeal for their intended readers. But that’s where the similarities end.

Hockey Superstars 2006-2007 continues the successful series that veteran Canadian (and now U.K.-based) sports broadcaster Paul Romanuk has been writing for young hockey fans for two decades. Using a large-page, magazine-style format that’s heavy with big, full-colour photos and lots of quotes from great players like Daniel Alfredsson, Sydney Crosby, and Jaromir Jagr, Romanuk sets up the 2006-’07 season with everything a young fan could want as background for watching the games. He includes fill-in-the-blanks tables to track the progress of favourite teams and players, a do-it-yourself chart for following the 2007 playoffs, and personal and team statistics from last season for comparison with this year’s performances.

There’s also a valuable, team-by-team list that includes all the key information (uniform colour, home arena, and so on) of all 30 NHL franchises, and a nifty diagram that explains all of the major infractions called during games by referees.

Hockey Superstars doesn’t go into much depth in any one area – entire books have been devoted to great players, but stars like Mats Sundin and Jarome Iginla get just a page here. But this book provides such quick, entertaining coverage of so many aspects of the NHL game that it will make both a perfect pre-season primer for young people and an invaluable way to keep track of the goings-on during the campaign. It’s easy to imagine author Romanuk as a super-fan eager to pass on his interest in the game to younger versions of himself with this series, and he’s certainly done a fine job at that task.

Hockey Trivia for Kids, on the other hand, contains none of the flash and flair of Hockey Superstars. What it does contain is page after page of fascinating trivia for the true hockey geek (and remember, in Canada, that term is not taken as an insult by a sizable number of young fans.)

Hockey historian Eric Zweig has clearly put a great deal of time into mining such sources as Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame. He has come up with the perfect blend of factoids everybody should know (Bill Barilko’s death and the discovery of his remains, Mike Bossy’s 50-goals-in-50-games season) as well as downright bizarre, I-never-knew-that tales such as the one about the players who killed a rat in the dressing room and the time Guy Lafleur swiped the Stanley Cup and took it to his parents’ house.

Although it is billed as a trivia title, this is not a question-and-answer book, but rather a collection of Zweig’s many fascinating snippets, most of them accompanied by funny black-and-white illustrations or photos. While this presentation makes Hockey Trivia for Kids as different from Hockey Superstars as it can be, it will be no less successful in holding the interest of the thousands of young fans who love pro hockey.