Meet J. Armand Bombardier

Bombardier may be a familiar business name to many Canadians, but the man behind the company is less well-known. Author Elizabeth MacLeod and illustrator Mike Deas bring Armand Bombardier’s story to life.

The theme of the story, from Bombardier’s earliest days as the eldest of eight children to his ultimate success as an inventor and entrepreneur, is to never give up.

Armand never gave up, even when things didn’t work perfectly the first time. Or the second. Or the third. All of his inventions were sparked by Armand daring to ask, “What should I invent next?” (p. 29)

Many young students will be familiar with the egg drop challenge in which students try to drop a raw egg from a height without breaking it. Speech bubbles in the illustrations on page 29 are a well placed tie-in with Bombardier’s persistence.

   “Can anyone be an inventor?”
   “Sure! Just think about what would help people.”
   “Remember the egg parachute we tried to make?”
   “We broke so many eggs! But I have a new idea to try.”

Deas’ illustrations are in a colourful cartoon style with lots of action, and with expressive reactions to Armand’s successes and failures. The illustrations cover more than half of each page, clearly showing the progression of machines that Armand created from his earliest toys for his younger siblings to vehicles that could finally move people and goods over snow - delivery vehicles, ambulances, troop carriers, school buses.

Eventually, Armand and his son were successful at creating a personal vehicle made to carry one or two people over the snow.

At first Armand called his new machines Ski-Dogs. But after “Ski-Dogs” was mistakenly printed as “Ski-Doo” in a brochure, that’s what they became known as. (p. 25)

The final pages of the book contain a timeline beginning with Joseph-Armand Bombardier’s birth in 1907, in Valcourt, Quebec. Earlier in the book, Valcourt is described as “a small town near Montreal in southeastern Quebec”. Hopefully, a revised version of the book will clarify that Valcourt is in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, not southeastern Quebec.

Meet J. Armand Bombardier will be an excellent addition to any Canadian biography collection for young readers.