There's plenty of action ... with moments of quiet reflection. It's about longing for freedom, and working hard to obtain it. It's a story of individual courage, of friendship, and the selfless efforts of strangers who help along the way. It's about survival in the face of injury, cold, hunger, and thirst.

Contrary to the usual narrative, the author isn't escaping FROM the Germans, he is a German. His third escape takes him nearly 2,000 miles across Canada and into the US. Join Klaus Conrad on his journey.

Reading authentic material is an important part of learning any language. But it's difficult to find text at just the right level, and tedious to spend lots of time looking up words in a dictionary. Bilingual books are a good start, but most just put the text on facing pages, which still requires hunting for the translation.

Canadian Escapades is much easier. When you're reading in your second language and don't understand a sentence, just glance at the other column. It's also great for idioms, casual expressions, and other language elements where dictionaries aren't much help.