Feature

A Book in Sheep's Clothing
Adapting Books for the Canadian Market

by S. D. Liddiard

A friend once told me, that as a child, she never quite felt at home with children's books. Although the books from which she learned to read held no witches or elves or magic spells, and described quite ordinary characters, they seemed to be set in a fantasy land. A few years later, when she moved from Saskatchewan to Ontario, she discovered that the fantasy land actually existed.

You see, her childhood books were full of illustrations of and references to trees: tall, graceful maple and oak trees like those that line the streets of most southern Ontario cities and towns. Trees like that just do not grow in the Prairies. Growing up in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, my friend lived in an environment entirely different from that of the author and the author's intended audience.

My friend's childhood alienation from her books is one reason that publishers adapt books for specific markets. In the 1960s, children in Saskatchewan and other parts of Canada were sometimes exposed to textbooks that reflected neither their heritage nor their environment. Reading, of course, is supposed to broaden one's experience. Exposing readers, especially children, to new experiences and unfamiliar environments, is good, is it not? Well, yes, but not immediately. For the very early reader, the chief goal is to instill the skill of reading. This is a significant challenge for even the best of students. When you learn to read, you are learning how the language you speak is rendered on paper. When the text you are learning to read fails to reflect familiar language or the objects and scenes that you use language to describe, the effect can be disorienting and distracting. Books that distract, rather than engage, are not as effective as they should be.

Adaptation is a way to make books more effective for readers outside the author's original audience. In Canada, books are adapted with such regularity that a name even exists for the process: Canadianization. In fact, a major portion of the business of some Canadian publishing companies consists of Canadianizing books written elsewhere.

What is involved in adapting a book? Why bother? Are Canadian books regionalized to make them more accessible to readers in other parts of the country? Would current practice have spared my friend her disorienting early exposure to huge, unprairie-like trees?

Why Are Books Adapted?

Around the world, native speakers of English number more than 300 million. Many millions more speak it well enough to buy books written in English. Canada holds about 25 million, less than one-twelfth of the worldwide total. Many more books are written in English to supply the demand in markets outside Canada than to specifically supply the relatively small market inside our borders. Many of the books targeted at external markets are nevertheless of interest and use to Canadian readers. Publishers in Canada are usually willing to invest in a product that has a good chance of selling here. It is, after all, less costly to purchase the rights to a book already published elsewhere than to commission a new work of similar quality and scope.

If publishers are willing to issue foreign-authored books, and readers are willing to buy them, why go to the trouble and expense of adapting them? The answer to this question depends on the kinds of books and their purpose.

What Kinds of Books Are Adapted for the Canadian Market?

The primary candidates for Canadianization are textbooks for post-secondary institutions, mainly universities. The development of a university textbook is a long, complex, and costly procedure. Because the market for such books in Canada is relatively small, commissioning a new textbook represents a significant risk. The cost and the risk are both reduced by adapting a textbook that has already been successful in another market.

Children's books are also sometimes adapted. Publishers will do this on their own if they believe that it will help a book to sell in the new market. Such adaptations may also be undertaken at the behest of a provincial department of education, so that the adapted book meets curriculum standards while filling a need not satisfied by domestic authors. The primary aim of adaptations of children's books is to provide young readers with a learning context that reflects their language and environment. The adapted books can focus the young reader's attention on learning to read, rather than on learning the subject matter.

The fairly stringent and detailed curriculum requirements of provincial departments of education mean that high school and primary school textbooks are almost never adapted. Trade books (non-fiction written for the business or general-interest markets) are rarely adapted because they are the least costly and risky for a publisher to produce. Trade books also tend to be quite detailed about specific subjects and do not lend themselves to adaptation.

Works of fiction may undergo minor adaptations when published in another country. Cover art is sometimes changed. The spelling of words in Canadian and British fiction is sometimes changed when the work is published in the American market.

Any book that is translated is adapted. The translation is itself a significant adaptation. Good translators are conscientious not only in capturing the meaning of the original text, but also in using terms and contexts that the target audience will understand.

What Is Involved in Adapting a Book?

For a foreign textbook or other work that might benefit from Canadianization, a publisher must first find Canadian reviewers whose expertise qualifies them to examine the subject matter from a Canadian perspective. Qualified reviewers are found, for the most part, in universities.

An acquisitions editor submits the work to one or two reviewers for a recommendation on whether to proceed with Canadianization. The reviewers examine the quality and timeliness of the book and estimate the effort required for adaptation.

Once the decision to adapt has been made, the publisher chooses an author to perform the adaptation, again, typically from the faculty of a university. The selection is based in part on the individual's reputation in the relevant field of study. It is also based, in part, on teaching ability, because publishers feel that this reflects the ability to communicate effectively about a subject.

Editors work with the adapting author throughout the project to ensure that the work is progressing. Draft portions of the work are sent to reviewers to check the accuracy and completeness of the adaptation.

Once the changes have been applied, the book must be examined for continuity to ensure that the adaptations have maintained the flow of the narrative and kept all context necessary for other parts of the book to be understood.

What Sorts of Changes Are Made When a Book is Adapted?

Terminology

Terminology is one of the first areas examined when a book undergoes adaptation. If the terms used in a book are unfamiliar to readers or, worse, if they are familiar but have a different meaning, then the book will not be understood. Canadian terminology is substituted for words or expressions that may be common in a book's original market, but that are either unfamiliar or used differently here. For example, in a British book about cars, the words bonnet and boot would be changed to hood and trunk. An American book might refer to a stocking cap, when Canadians know this better as a tuque.

Spelling

English is an old and varied language. Since the American colonies split from England in 1776, variations have inevitably crept into the spelling and usage employed by these two major sources of English-language writing. Canada sits squarely between the two, using some British variations and some American. When a work is Canadianized, the spelling must inevitably be changed, wherever the author originated. For example, color and honor are changed to colour and honour, while tyre and kerb are changed to tire and curb.

Diversity

Another way a book is Canadianized is to reflect this country's regional and cultural diversity. Canada is one of the most culturally diverse nations in the world, and textbooks developed in other countries usually fail to include the same range of surnames, cultural activities, and dress found in Canada's major cities.

Most books adapted for Canadian readers originate in the United States, the largest market in the world for English-language books. (And almost everything else.) The U.S. is similar to Canada in many ways, but it is less diverse. For example, its native North American population forms a smaller proportion of the total, and, at current levels of immigration, newcomers represent a smaller proportion of the total population than in Canada. Many textbooks written for the U.S. market need to be changed to reflect the diversity found in Canada.

Illustrations

Illustrations may be changed to show Canadian scenes, to demonstrate cultural diversity, or to eliminate foreign flags or mailboxes. Care must be taken to ensure that an illustration conveys the intended meaning. For example, pictures of an American inner city might be mistaken in Canada for an illustration of the effects of warfare rather than poverty and alienation.

Measurement

Frequently the system of measurement must be modified. Canada uses the Système international d'unités (SI), frequently called the metric system. If a foreign book uses American or Imperial measures, these must be converted to metric values. Finally, any reference to the French language must be correct and, of course, French should not be called a "foreign" language.

Not all changes are automatic

An editor responsible for adapting a book needs to be careful about changing references from foreign institutions to Canadian equivalents. Differences between the institutions of the two countries could mean that the reference is incorrect in the Canadian context. A reference in an American book to the Bill of Rights, for example, might not be appropriate if changed to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The editor must read the reference carefully. Additional research could be required to determine whether the most appropriate course would be to change the reference, to rewrite the text so that it applies to the Canadian institution, or to leave the reference unchanged.

How Does the Canadianization of Books Affect My Children's Education?

Most provincial departments of education mandate that textbooks be written by Canadian authors. Saskatchewan's Evergreen curriculum and Ontario's Circular 14 curriculum, for example, are both top-heavy with books by Canadians. Foreign-authored textbooks are considered only for special purposes. If a publisher believes that a foreign book can meet a need not addressed by a Canadian textbook, then the book will normally be adapted so that it reflects Canadian realities. Adapted books are more likely to meet curriculum guidelines and receive approval from a department of education.

Provincial departments of education do not necessarily approve all reading material used in the schools. The Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, for instance, only approves textbooks that cover an entire curriculum. An anthology of literature or a history survey covering an entire year's study would have to meet the standards set out in Circular 14. Responsibility for approving books that form only a part of a year's program rests with local school boards, which also have guidelines for the selection of material.

The current reality is that our children are much more likely in primary and secondary school, to use textbooks written by Canadians than we. When they do use foreign-authored books, they are more likely to have been adapted.

What about children learning to read in Saskatchewan? Are textbooks regionalized for them? Or are they still likely to stumble across unfamiliar, monster trees? Several significant changes have occurred to publishing for the children's and the school markets. Many more books are available now than 35 years ago. Teachers and school boards now have more discretion to choose books that fill the specific needs of their pupils. Monster trees remain a possibility, but that depends on the choices made by local authorities. For the most part, young readers across the country now learn to read using books that are written by Canadians. And some textbooks are adapted for specific Canadian regions, although this is still quite rare.

The Best Adaptations Go Unnoticed

In Canada, books from around the world are published in adapted form on a regular basis. If the job of Canadianization is done well, Canadian readers never notice it. What they do see is a book containing information and examples of direct relevance to their lives, presented in language familiar to them. It is a source of pride to the editors and researchers adapting books that the result of months of concerted effort is considered successful when it goes unnoticed.

S. D. Liddiard is a hopelessly addicted bibliophile who still remembers being uncomfortable about some of the unfamiliar language he had to cope with in Fun with Dick and Jane when he was learning to read. "But nobody says 'out-of-doors' when they mean 'outside.' Who are these people?" he protested to his Grade One teacher, "Couldn't the publisher have adapted this book for the Canadian market?" He thinks it is a miracle he learned to read at all.