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Onusko, James A. (2021). **Boom Kids: Growing Up in the Calgary Suburbs, 1950-1970.** Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Reviewed by: Victor Rodriguez San Martin, MacEwan University

James Onusko's book “Boom Kids: Growing Up in the Calgary Suburbs, 1950-1970”, shows what the lifestyle was like in the Calgary suburbs, more specifically in Banff Trail during the period of 1950 to 1970. Onusko is known for his work gathering information about what happened in Canadian neighborhoods after the Second World War. Yet in this book, his research gives substantial weight to the perspective of children’s experiences in suburban Banff Trail with information gathered from that stage of Calgary's history, and personal testimonies of today's adults who were children in the postwar era. As a result, the book adopts a focus on how children and adolescents played a fundamental role in the creation of a social identity that existed in the second half of the twentieth century in Canadian neighborhoods. Onusko's book through his meticulous gathering of reliable sources of information facilitates the reader and the academic audience the visualization of what life was like in those times, when the effects of the Second World War were still persevering in society, and where the beginning of a new social group reflected in life in the neighborhood, family economic structures, and the new approach to education were influenced by the activities of children and young people contributed to the creation of this new social identity.

By comparing life today with life back in the 1950s, it can be easy for readers to see what
a drastic change has taken place in Canadian neighborhood life through Onusko's book. In fact, at
the beginning of the book, one of the first differences that stand out is those related to the safety
of children in the neighborhood. "Reports make it clear that children's safety was paramount" (p.
24). Unfortunately, the authorities' efforts to create a distinctiveness as a safe neighborhood for
children were in vain, since a large number of car accidents was complicated to control. "despite
planners' efforts and concerns, vehicles, streets, and children have a long and tragic history of
serious injury and death" (p. 24). Fortunately, that security has progressed over time to what we
can see today in our Canadian neighborhoods. Furthermore, Onusko also describes how social life
ties were developed within the neighborhood among children that also involved their family
members. The baby boom in the post-war era was an important social impulse towards the
expansion of new neighborhoods, such as Banff Trail, where the majority of its population were
big family groups belonging to the working middle class of that time. The communal unions of
members in the suburbs show the opportunity that existed among children to create connections
that end in close friendships during childhood, this simplicity was provided by these
neighborhoods with their diversity of spaces for public use that existed, and which were relatively
new to this society. Onusko describes "Children spent time in community parks and green spaces
with adults and other young people from a wide range of ages. Young people, sometimes on their
own but often with others, used, shared, or reconstituted spaces for their activities" (p. 37). As a
result, adults also witnessed the creation of friendships between their children, thanks to the
sharing life of public spaces around their neighborhood. The Lawrences comment, "Boomer par-
ents remembered the importance of space as well. Access to this space was open for most children
from the northernmost edges-near Nose Hill-of the Banff Trail suburb" (p. 37). Without a doubt,
life in the suburbs populated by middle-class families had a strong influence on children and young
people because are the central axis within its social essence.

Not only life in the neighborhood was pointed out in Onusko's book but also family
economic structures have a special mention that has a strong connection to youth. Many families
living in the suburbs of Banff Trail belonged to the working class, where the economic situation
corresponded more to a lower middle class. However, Onusko exposes how children were an
important part of the economic situation of families living in the suburbs since they also
contributed financially to their family group. Onusko describes "In both working-class and middle-
class homes, suburban children and adolescents usually performed some work for wages during
this period" (p. 85). This particular economic contribution, which undoubtedly would be
something unacceptable today, was in order to allow family groups to be affordable for purchase
of a home that was considered something basic but at the same time something arduous to achieve.
"For some Banff Trail families, who struggled financially despite the booming economy in the
early 1950s, the process of purchasing a family home was not smooth" (p. 80). Although Onusko
clearly describes how the family economy literally depended on each member of the family in
chapter three, it would also have been interesting if Onusko had included in his information if at
that time there were government programs with monetary aid as it happens nowadays. This would
be in order to give the audience a more critical analysis of the family economy after the Second
World War.
Finally, education played a fundamental role in the creation of this new identity in children, and Onusko stands out through different compilations of experiences lived by people who lived their childhood in the Banff Trail neighborhood, and contributions from professionals such as social workers. Education at that stage was characterized by being strict and rude to the students. Teachers engaged in practices that included beating troublesome children with belts, as Mr. Bruce Wilson described in his testimony "remembered his disciplining in school and that the "strap was in vogue ... I never got it as I was one of those kids that avoided that kind of thing ... By the time we got to junior high, a little more open ... I was in the Matriculation Program of Honours group, so we were pretty tight as a cohort" (p. 59). These school punishment practices at that time were something that sought to create discipline in children. "Elementary, junior high, and secondary schools were places where young children and adolescents were observed and classified, required to obey rules, measured in terms of their relationship to specific standards, and directed to modify behaviours and their physical appearance" (p. 59). Although the schools supported these disciplinary acts with some arguments such as preventing young people from committing irregular activities such as delinquency, social workers of that time also contributed to improvising the educational system from violent treatment against young people to a more accurate educational system. "Social workers, both in Alberta and across the country, called for increased funding and the ongoing professionalization of social work, upholding education as a bulwark against juvenile delinquency and other social diseases" (p. 161). This contribution from social workers could provide guidelines for the academic audience of Onusko's book who practice this profession today, on how to advocate for young people in society. In addition, in the early 1960s, social improvement
also impacted education, as prior to that life the government still caught homosexual behavior, and religious opinion was considered socially important. But after the 1960s, education began to open up with implementations like sexual education in schools, even delivering a reserved approach but overlooking the educational modernization for children. Onusko mentions, "When it came to formal sex education in this period, adolescents were often segregated by gender for the lessons, but there was little difference in what they were being taught or not being taught" (p. 125). Onusko's research highlights what can be expected from that time when taboos were still an important social issue. Children were not considered with their opinions about the educational approaches and only the opinion of teachers and those in charge of the distribution of education was considered. "In 1962, an article in the *Calgary Herald* titled "Early Sex Schooling Urged" revealed some of the discussions from a three-day teachers' convention held in Calgary, where it was concluded that sex education should begin informally in grade one with teachers taking spontaneous questions" (p. 126). Here on this issue of the new approach that education began to experience in the 1960s, Onusko does a good job, thanks to the testimonies collected by people who tell of their childhood experiences at this time in history. This issue contrasts significantly with what is lived today in educational establishments and social identities that show a more liberal attitude, which from the point of view of academic audiences and new professional generations such as sociologists, teachers, psychologists, and social workers, can be a valuable source of information to generate contrasts and also learn about the long process of improvement that the educational system has undergone over the years in Canada.

The above points illustrate how the influence of children was an essential fragment of the
focus of Onusko's book. Through the life of the neighborhood, the family economy, and the modernization of education, the identity of the neighborhood reflected in the children's social experiences was always the common factor described throughout the book. While it is true that Onusko's writing style is characterized by gathering information from real people's experiences after the war, the emphasis he placed in this book highlighting the lives of children and youth in the Calgary suburbs could have been more explicit. This could be through reinforcing the compilation of information from formal sources such as documents with reliable statistics. But after all, much of his book fulfills the intention of visualizing how the process of creating neighborhoods in Canada at the end of the Second World War was like, which can be enough reason to motivate an academic and general audience to read this book and acquire some additional knowledge about life in the suburbs in Canada.