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HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE OLD? by Norma Farber

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE OLD?

By

Pub Date: Sept. 19th, 1979
Publisher: Unicorn/Dutton

An old woman answers her granddaughter's question in a picture-book-length rhyme that flows with Farber's usual ease but never goes beyond a generalized and basically sentimental conception of age. Being old feels fine, free, ""quite bold,"" says the grandmother--""I say what I choose/ having nothing to lose/ by being a demon, taking a chance""--but she misses the parental hugs of childhood. Living alone and eating at will are great--but ""when are you coming again to tea?"" She mentions being clumsy and wrinkled, takes a memory-lane tour through the photo album, and calmly anticipates the time when ""I'll finish my now and my here."" (Earlier, she dismisses the idea of having her watch fixed because ""I forget how it feels to be needing to be/ in a certain there at a certain then."") Hyman, in black, shows the woman and girl together in the grandmother's old house, while brown drawings in the background represent scenes or faces from the past--again, too predictably and conventionally to really strike a chord.