A Visit to Grandma's - Softcover

PreSchool-Grade 1-- Tina's family visits her grandmother at her Florida condo for Thanksgiving. Of course memories of family gatherings at the farm in Minnesota, with all the wondrous smells from Grandma's kitchen, fill their minds as they deplane. But, whoa! This can't be Grandma who meets them! Purple pants, yellow tank top, bangles, spangles, and shades replace the sensible clothes they expect to see. From here on, the holiday takes on a new bounce. Forget the all-day cooking; Grandma has aerobics and tap-dancing classes and is much too busy to be stuck in a kitchen. Reservations for a stone crab dinner with all of her new friends and a bakery pie at the condo afterwards is the order of the day. The splashy watercolor combinations of fuchsia, yellow, pink, purple, and green are perfect complements to the evocative facial expressions of the cartoon beaver family. They convey the carefree lifestyle Grandma has chosen, and her happiness is apparent from the dust cover to the final page. The two-or-three lines of text per page are quite manageable for independent readers, and children will love the sheer fun of it all. A good read-aloud choice, too. --Mary Lou Budd, Milford South Elementary School, OH
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ever since Grandma moved to a condo in Florida, Tina has missed her--and her pumpkin pies, turkey and stuffing. When Tina and her parents arrive for a Thanksgiving visit, it's a liberated Grandma who greets them--in a snazzy red roadster. Having traded in her calico apron for slinky sportswear and cat's-eye sunglasses, Grandma is living in a world of aerobics classes, health shakes, late-night gabfests--and store-bought pies, to Dad's dismay. When Thanksgiving dinner turns out to be with Grandma's friends at Monti's Fish and Chips, however, Tina finds that she loves stone crab as well as turkey, and that Grandma's new social set is pretty nifty too. While initially upsetting, Carlson seems to say, change is not always for the worse--as her typically endearing rodent family discovers. This subtle but important message is served up with jazzy trimmings--snappy beach attire, abstract furnishings--and makes its point deftly. Ages 3-8.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.