This curriculum about Universalism in Canada has been crafted around stories which are the result of meticulous research by author Margaret King Gooding. Peg has traveled the country, visiting the churches, searching the archives and speaking to historians to unearth a wealth of scattered detail. Carefully she has pieced the fragments together, using her experience, knowledge and imagination to fill in the missing parts until the images have become whole and alive.

These stories will serve many purposes for Canadian Unitarian universalists. Each unit of this twelve session curriculum is based on one story. The sessions are written for children ages 811 years. But the stories will also be valuable resources for children's worship, intergenerational services, and sermons. Perhaps most importantly they will help us Canadians (and our American brothers and sisters) toward a greater understanding of our unique identity as Unitarian Universalists. They uncover some of our history. They identify and illustrate some of our most significant values: love, courage, persistence, inclusiveness, commitment, inquiry, endurance, equality, tradition, respect, interdependence, fairness, and faithfulness.

Our history shows that Canadian Unitarian Universalist identity is found in the stories of communities as much as individuals, in the slow steady struggles of determined people as much as in significant events. These are stories of gatherings of faith-filled people . . . pioneers, survivors, who held on to visions of communities bound together in love and justice, and who had the tenacity to pursue those visions over their lifetimes.

Patricia A. Weber, MRE