NEW CANADIAN KID: A PLAY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE Dennis Foon. Vancouver, Pulp Press, c1982. 47pp, paper, $4.95. ISBN 0-88979-136-2. Grades 3-8. Reviewed by Louise Griffith. Volume 12 Number 3 1984 May New Canadian Kid by Dennis Foon is a short play written for children for the purpose of increasing sensitivity to the problems faced by New Canadians. The author uses the unusual device of having Nick, the new Canadian kid from Homeland, speak English while Mug and Mench, his two English-speaking classmates, speak a sort of pidgin English gibberish for which an English translation is provided. MENCH: (Mench takes out a baseball and two baseball mitts) Ee Bee Bersbolo hatch. (This is a baseball mitt.) NICK: (pronouncing badly) Ders gollo batch. MENCH: Nax quote. Bersebolo hatch. (Not quite. Baseball mitt.) NICK: Bersebolo hatch. (Baseball mitt.) The play starts in Homeland where Nick's classmates give him a bowl as a farewell token of friendship. To his dismay, the bowl is broken by unthinking new classmates. Nick wants to return to Homeland, but his mother says that he must stay. Finally Nick learns enough English to get by, he begins to play baseball with the other boys and starts to bump his classmates back so hard that they stop bothering him. Then it is he who encourages his mother to take English lessons and welcome his new English-speaking friends to their home. This is obviously a rather contrived propaganda piece, but a skilful director could overcome the gibberish problems and make this play a successful presentation at the elementary level. Louise Griffith, Agincourt, ON.