Grandpa's Girls

by Nicola I. Campbell

Other authorsKim LaFave (Illustrator)
Hardcover, 2011

Status

Available

Call number

JP CAM

Call number

JP CAM

Description

The little girl in this story loves to visit Grandpa's farm where she and her cousins run through the fields, swing out the bar loft window and feed crab apples to the Appaloosa in the corral. They explore the root cellar and tiptoe into Grandpa's secret room to look at memories from the past.

Publication

Groundwood Books (2011), Edition: Illustrated, 32 pages

Original language

English

User reviews

LibraryThing member AbigailAdams26
Nicola I. Campbell, an immensely talented children's author of Interior Salish and Métis ancestry, whose picture-book explorations of the trauma of the forced residential (boarding) school experience for Canada's First Nations people - Shi-shi-etko and Shinchi's Canoe - were so immensely poignant
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and powerful, turns to a happier subject in this, her third offering. I'm glad of that, because although I feel it's incredibly important to explore traumatic realities in children's books - children live in the world, after all, and traumatic things happen to them, and to the people around them - and think Campbell did an excellent job detailing a terrible injustice visited upon the indigenous peoples of this continent (the USA too, has a shameful record in this regard), it's also important to depict the good things about contemporary native life - the warmth of family, the happiness of summer days spent outdoors - and Grandpa's Girls does just that!

Following a group of cousins as they spend the day at their grandfather's place - exploring the root cellar, swinging on ropes in the big red barn, petting Grandpa's Appaloosa - the story emphasizes the bonds of love and laughter that tie this extended family together. The artwork, done by Kim LaFave - the same artist who worked with Campbell on her two previous books - is fun and carefree, in a sweet cartoon-like style. Especially appealing as a story about contemporary First Nations people that doesn't revolve around an "issue" of some kind - this is something that is often in short supply - Grandpa's Girls also has broader relevance, as a general story of family, and love between the generations.
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ISBN

1554980844 / 9781554980840
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