Despite some flaws, an informative tale about a beloved family member’s dementia.
In this early chapter book, a boy watches as his grandfather changes after a dementia diagnosis.
A bond between a grandparent and grandchild can be very special, just as it is for Anthony Eric Brown and a young Black child named Tony. They love to play basketball together while Tony’s sister, Kathy, bonds with Grandma over baking and other activities. Tony calls the basketball court Grandpa built in his own backyard “probably my favorite place in the world.” Then one day, everything starts to change—Grandpa confuses the number of boxes of jerseys he’s shipped out from his sports supply store, sending more than he needs to. Tony takes this incident in stride, but roughly a month later, Grandpa forgets the Thanksgiving turkey and shows other signs of being unwell. A trip to the geriatrician reveals that Grandpa has vascular dementia, an irreversible disease that impacts his brain functions, and Tony isn’t sure what to make of it. It isn’t easy taking care of a dementia patient—not for Tony’s Grandma, a former nurse, and not for the boy himself, who must now adapt his habits and expectations around his grandfather. Egi’s illuminating story creates a solid model for young readers experiencing situations like Tony’s, interweaving his emotional reactions to his grandfather’s diagnosis with more practical suggestions, such as supporting Grandpa by reinventing basketball and helping his own mental health by journaling. Unfortunately, the tale is so laser focused that the characters can appear flat, and the plot could have used more fleshing out. The titular metaphor of unmasking Grandpa is likewise problematic, as the word choice isn’t well explained. Occasionally opposite the pages with text are Kaur’s illustrations of the main plot points, which are brightly colored and simple but sometimes lack background details. Still, this book deserves a place on the special topics shelf next to works like The Tide (2019) by Clare Helen Welsh.
Despite some flaws, an informative tale about a beloved family member’s dementia.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2022
ISBN: 9781989707241
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Carnelian Moon Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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