Celia and Nonna by Victoria Lane and Kayleen West
Ford St Publishing, 2014. ISBN 978925000603 (hardback). ISBN
978192000601 (paperback).
(Ages: 4+) Highly recommended. Some very apt books have come my way
in the last week or so and this is one of them. This gentle and
loving story of a little girl and her much-loved Nonna, and the
changes that occur when Nonna's memory starts to fail is so very
pertinent to our family at the present time.
It is difficult for little ones to understand that aging family
members cannot always remember things, or indeed that they may
change where they live. On Friday we celebrated my mother's 88th
birthday and at times it is tricky for the two youngest
great-grandchildren to understand why Nanny now lives in the place
she does, or why she doesn't remember everything. Celia loves
sleeping over at her Nonna's place. She always has a fuss made of
her and she and Nonna cook together and play special games, but when
Nonna starts to forget things, locks herself out of the house and so
on, Nonna moves to a special place where people can help to keep her
safe. There is no room for Celia to sleep over any more and nowhere
to cook but there is room to put lots of drawings up on walls of the
fun things that are special memories. In just the same way, Miss
Just-Turned-Five spends much time creating beautiful artwork for her
great-grandmother, just to make sure Nanny knows how much she is
loved.
It was difficult for me to read this without emotion because of the
intensely personal circumstances but this is a superb book to share
with little people who are facing changes in their family due to
aging, dementia or Alzheimer's disease.
The text and illustrations are simple, gentle and suitably engaging
for a young audience and the endpapers are truly gorgeous (many of
my friends and students know about my rapture over endpapers!).
Highly recommended for home and library shelves for sharing with
small people from around 4 and up.
Sue Warren