STILL MY GRANDMA

Young Camille and her grandma clearly share a very special relationship. Told primarily in the past tense, Camille lovingly describes the experiences they shared—baking cupcakes, perusing old photos, feeding ducks at the pond. Most of these pages are illustrated without defined borders, lending a dreamy quality of wonderful pictorial memories surrounded by sweeping strokes of gentle whites, yellows and pinks. Two-thirds through the story, things turn present tense as Grandma begins exhibiting symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Camille’s parents do their best to explain while Camille makes every effort to create new traditions with her hospitalized grandmother. Nearly all the pictures of the present time are constricted by definite, squared borders. The paintings are homey, simple and loving. Although Camille’s process of accepting Grandma’s new circumstances is unexplained, this is a gentle, effective, albeit slightly simplified tale of this increasingly common disease. (Picture book. 4-8)