Article content

VANCOUVER — This fall, just as it has done for the past 14 years, the Canadian Children’s Book Centre will distribute a free children’s book to all of Canada’s 500,000 Grade 1 students.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or School districts reject free copies of Grade 1 book because of bank logo on cover Back to video

All except for children in Saanich, B.C., and Ontario’s York Region, where school administrators balked that the book’s inclusion of a TD Bank logo transforms it into a piece of corporate advertising.

“The book has nothing to do with banking,” said Shar Levine, a board member with the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, a Toronto-based non-profit group.

“It’s not like Mattel or McDonald’s trying to get in early to a child’s mind; TD has no real meaning to a child,” she said. “Most of the kids in Grade 1 don’t even know the letters ‘T’ and ‘D’.”

The book is Boy Soup by Toronto children’s author Loris Lesynski, first published in 1996. Illustrated by Michael Martchenko, whose work has long accompanied the writings of Robert Munsch, the story follows a giant’s attempts to cure his cold by fixing up a bowl of boy soup.

TD paid for the book’s printing and distribution. As such, there is a TD logo on the book’s front cover and a short letter inside from TD Bank CEO Ed Clark in which the veteran Bay Street executive tells the young reader that “imagination can take you new places.”