Always Gramma - Hardcover

PreSchool-Grade 2 This book deals with the problem of senility in a realistic and positive way. A little girl tells about her wonderful relationship with her grandmother and all of the special things that Gramma did for her. Then Gramma begins to forget things and to wander off and get lost. Eventually, Gramma moves to a nursing home, where the girl's mother feeds Gramma and the girl pushes her wheelchair. In spite of the sadness, the child keeps the special memories of their time together alive and helps to take care of her grandmother in small ways. The realistic watercolor illustrations have a soft impressionistic character, creating a warmth that reinforces the mood of the story well. Both text and illustrations are superior to But She's Still My Grandma! (Human Sciences Pr, 1982) by Doreen Rappaport, in which the parents are reluctant to allow the child to see her grandmother. Jane Gardner Connor, formerly at South Carolina State Library, Columbia
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Alzheimer's disease is never named in a girl's first-person narration of the declining memory of a grandmother, but it fits all the descriptions offered. "I remember" is the phrase the girl repeats, as she recalls all the good times she had with Gramma before the older woman became confused and disoriented. When she is put in a home, the girl's mother and Grampap visit every day. But the best visits are from the girl herself, who is content to sit and tell her grandmother about all the things that happen to her each day. The girl's intuitive understanding of what her grandmother needs from her is very sensitively wrought; this also comes across in Uhler's color-washed paintings. Certain passages of this are almost unbearably sad, and yet the story (and the girl's relationship with her grandmother) is redeemed by the message of hope at the end, and the tender exchange of roles. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.