ACHUKA Children's Books UK

children's & YA recommendations on the go

You are here: Home / Archives for grandmother

Olive Jones and the Memory Thief by Kate Gilby Smith

By Leave a Comment

Waterstones
Amazon
Bookshop

After her grandmother’s funeral, Olive learns she has inherited something unexpected: her grandmother’s memories.

Olive is surprised – her grandmother wasn’t a cuddly, affectionate kind of grandmother. Curious about what she might discover, Olive sets out to ‘watch’ the memories. But before she can, they’re stolen right from under her nose. Olive can’t understand why anybody would want to steal the memories. As far as she’d known, her grandmother had always lived an utterly ordinary life. Following the trail of the thief, Olive begins to discover that her grandmother’s life wasn’t what she thought. As she unravels the secrets lurking in her grandmother’s past, she discovers clues Grandma Sylvie left her. It’s up to Olive to solve the mystery of the memory thief, and in the process, learn about the incredible life and adventures of the grandmother she has never really known.

Follow the author on Instagram:

Alte Zachen: Old Things by Ziggy Hanaor ill. Benjamin Phillips

By Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 27 Apr 2022

Waterstones
Amazon
Bookshop

This first graphic novel from London-based indie publisher, Cicada Books, follows 11-year-old Benji and his elderly grandmother, Bubbe Rosa, as they traverse Brooklyn and Manhattan, gathering the ingredients for a Friday night dinner. Bubbe’s relationship with the city is complex — nothing is quite as she remembered it and she feels alienated and angry at the world around her. Benji, on the other hand, looks at the world, and his grandmother, with clear-eyed acceptance.

sample pagespread

As they wander the city, we catch glimpses of Bubbe’s childhood in Germany, her young adulthood in 1950s Brooklyn, and her relationships — first with a baker called Gershon, and later with Joe, Benji’s grandfather. Gradually we piece together snippets of Bubbe’s life, gaining an insight to some of the things that have formed her cantankerous personality.

sample pagespread

The journey culminates on the Lower East Side in a moving reunion between Rosa and Gershon, her first love. As the sun sets, Benji and his Bubbe walk home over the Williamsburg Bridge to make dinner.

This is a powerful, affecting and deceptively simple story of Jewish identity, of generational divides, of the surmountability of difference and of a restless city and its inhabitants.

Follow the Hastings-based illustrator on Instagram:

We Became Jaguars by Dave Eggers ill. Woodrow White

By Leave a Comment

Waterstones
Amazon
Bookshop

“a wondrous, breathtakingly painted night of bonding and adventure” NEW YORK TIMES
“Children will relish this book’s blurred ambiguities; what’s real and what’s imagined are as hard to distinguish as a jaguar in the shadows. A fresh inversion of expectations told in vivid art and idiom.” KIRKUS

When Grandma comes to visit and a young boy’s parents leave, the rules of the house-and the world-change: grandson and grandmother transform into jaguars! Readers follow their journey into the undiscovered world of nature, experience true freedom, and lose themselves in an exhilarating adventure. After a day of playing, running, and climbing through sumptuous landscapes, the ending will leave you wondering what’s real and what’s imagined.

Follow Woodrow White on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/woodrow_white/