Travels with my granny
Book Details
Travels with my granny
Juliet Rix. illus, Christopher Corr. Herefordshire: Otter-Barry Books, hb, 9 781 810 959 343, 2018, £11.99, 32pp.
Fiction, picture book
Age 5-10 years
This picture book provides a sensitive and helpful introduction to dementia, confusion and old age to share with a child, at the same time as working as a simple introduction to world geography.
The Granny of the story has been, during her lifetime, a great world traveller, so the story allows the child to go on journeys with her all over the world and explore some of the key landmarks of different places, all simply and colourfully imagined by Christopher Corr. In each place or city she describes aspects of life and the illustrations richly depict her descriptions encouraging the child reader to point and identify. It is a playful introduction to world cities for young children, but the child also understands that Granny is not really in the place she thinks she is. The child is able to accept this and is willing to go along with her stories and imaginings.
The endpapers are a simple world map encouraging the child reader to match objects illustrated in the book with the place of origin.
Juliet Rix researched the dementia issue very carefully and has written an interesting article about this, which is full of helpful insights.
Review by Pam Dix