Recordando a Abuela - Remembering Grandma, Del Sol Books

Author : Teresa Armas, Illustrator : Pauline Rodriguez Howard, Translator : Gabriela Baeza Ventura
Preschool - 2nd Grade

Recordando a Abuela - Remembering Grandma

Recordando a Abuela - Remembering Grandma, Hardcover, Bilingual, Book, Teresa Armas, Pauline Rodriguez Howard, Gabriela Baeza Ventura, Preschool - 2nd Grade, 9781558853447, $15.95

A poignant bilingual picture book about the death of a grandparent.

Like most Saturdays, Mr. García’s rooster wakes Lorena much earlier than she wants to wake up. Lorena pulls the covers over her head to block out the day, but she knows she has to get up. Today is no ordinary Saturday. She and her mother will be going to Grandpa’s house. Since Grandma’s recent death, everything has changed for Lorena. Her mother often cries, and Grandpa sits motionless in his chair staring out the window. Though Mamá says Grandma must be in heaven, Lorena misses Grandma, too. She can’t see or touch heaven. Where is Grandma? At Grandpa’s house, Lorena tries to help him stop grieving, but not even Grandma’s miracle words, “sana, sana, colita de rana . . .” work. How can Lorena help Grandpa? Lorena notices a beautiful carved chest in the corner of the room. When Lorena opens it, she sees a tangle of colors, fabrics, and keepsakes from when Grandma was alive. Will the treasured memories inside be able to bring her Grandpa back, to bring back the life in his eyes?

The charming illustrations bring Lorena’s memories of her grandmother to life in this bilingual picture book for readers aged 3-7 that will help children discover that sometimes, heaven isn’t as far away as it seems.

Vienna Rose Listen to Vienna Rose read Remembering Grandma to you. A marvelous example of the magical encounter between a child and books that we wish for all children.

School Library Journal : Grade 1-3-Lorena is not happy when Mr. Garc'a's rooster wakes her up. First of all, it's a weekend; and secondly, she and her mother must go to her grandfather's house to help him pack up her grandmother's things. Grandma has been dead for a month, and Lorena and her mother miss her terribly. The change in Grandpa, though, is frightening. He suddenly seems frail and tired, unable or unwilling to do anything but sit. When Lorena begins to look through her grandmother's chest, the memories triggered by its contents begin to help Grandpa heal. Warmly told, this story addresses both grief and healing in texts that are sensitive, childlike, and clear. The illustrations are painted in muted tones of peach, mauve, taupe, lavender, and blue, and look almost like photographs in their fidelity to detail. Individual personalities sparkle, and the use of brighter colors at the end of the book, as Grandpa begins to live again, is inspired. Similar to Carmen Santiago Nodar's Abuelita's Paradise (Albert Whitman, 1992) in the use of recollection as a tool for dealing with grief, this is a welcome addition to books on memory, grieving, and the joy of sharing past experiences.

Booklist : Gr. 1-3. A month after her beloved grandmother's death, Lorena and her mother go to what is now Grandpa's house to "clear out Grandma's stuff." Lorena, who can scarcely remember ever seeing her grandparents apart, is saddened by how listless Grandpa is now. But when she goes through a chest of her grandmother's things, she finds the shell necklace they made together. Grandpa puts on Grandma's flower-bedecked hat and gives Lorena the tiny heart on a chain he presented to Grandma when they were both 12 years old. The prose is a little overwrought in English, but the pictures, with their splendid, sturdy figures in fully realized spaces and Southwestern colors, engage with their direct humanity.

Bilingual Collection Blue Books :