Meet Clara Hughes

The morning of the 5000-metre race, Clara awoke feeling panicky. But she remembered that doing her best was what mattered. When the race started, she felt strong and in control.

Fuelled by the energy of a crowd full of Canadians, Clara rocketed down the ice…and won bronze. She was so happy and so proud! It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the gold medal. Clara could tell she had come a long way with her mental health and well-being.
Review

Part of the “Scholastic Canada Biography” series for young children, Meet Clara Hughes not only highlights Hughes’s amazing athletic achievements but also focuses on her philanthropy and her challenges with mental health. Hughes was born in Winnipeg in 1972. In her early teens, she became involved in dangerous activities such as shoplifting, drinking and smoking as a way of coping with problems at home, but, in 1988, while watching the men’s speed skating competition at the Calgary Winter Olympics on television, she became inspired. This led to her joining a skating club as well as cycling as part of her training for speed skating. The rest, as they say, is history. Hughes became the first person to win a bronze medal in women’s cycling at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, the fourth person ever to win a medal at both the Summer and Winter Olympics in 2002, and the only person ever to win more than one medal at both the Summer and Winter Olympics in 2006.

Though the book highlights Hughes’s athletic prowess, achievements and many “firsts”, it also takes an honest look at her struggles with depression and how she dealt with them. Her philanthropic contributions include her being a donor and volunteer for Right to Play in which athletes teach life skills through sports, being the national spokesperson for Bell Canada’s Bell Let’s Talk campaign which raises awareness for mental health, and Clara’s Big Ride, her 12,000 kilometer bike ride which took her through every province and territory in Canada. During Clara’s Big Ride, Hughes spoke about mental health in almost 100 towns and to students in 90 schools. There is not much in this book about Hughes’s personal life with the exception of her mental health issues and her love of camping, biking and hiking in the wilderness with her husband, Peter, whose support and positive attitude have helped her greatly in meeting the everyday challenges of life.

A timeline of Hughes’s life, along with a few photographs, appears on a double-page spread at the back of the book. However, there is no mention of her being named to the Order of Manitoba nor of her being appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.

The main body of the text is simply written and easy for readers to comprehend. Cartoonlike mixed media illustrations (a combination of digital and traditional media- gouache and watercolour paints and black inkline) accompany the text. These cartoons have speech bubbles, but the bubbles do not provide any new information and the text would have worked perfectly well without them.

Meet Clara Hughes is an inspirational book about an amazing athlete who has used her platform to offer help and hope to kids dealing with mental health issues.