Don't Call Me Grandma

Ninety-six-year-old Nell doesn't doesn't do hugs and kisses, and she growls her disapproval at her great-granddaughter, this book's narrator. But when Nell shares painful memories of "the time her best friend said they couldn't be friends anymore because of her brown skin," the narrator comes to a better understanding of her great-grandmother. Zunon's illustrations create a stage for the queenly central character.

Ninety-six-year-old great-grandmother, Nell, doesn't answer to "Grandma." She doesn't do hugs and kisses. She growls her disapproval at her great-granddaughter, who narrates this book. But belying Nell's starchy exterior is the sumptuous appearance of her bedroom: it's a perfumed sanctuary with a ballerina doll and a lavishly appointed vanity whose prettifying contents intoxicate the narrator. Nelson seems at first to be offering a character study, but it becomes something more when Nell shares with her great-granddaughter her memories of nickel Hershey bars, a church-picnic blue ribbon, and "the time her best friend said they couldn't be friends anymore because of her brown skin" -- the "first time" her heart was broken. This intergenerational exchange prompts a sort of laying on of hands -- great-granddaughter's on great-grandmother's. The scene yields to a wordless and illuminating double-page spread that further reveals Nell's story: it's devoted to black-and-white photos of mid-twentieth-century civil rights activism, "I Voted" buttons, and other souvenirs of a life both severely tested and richly lived. Though she twice describes Nell as "scary," by book's end the narrator has come to better understand her great-grandmother, admitting, "I like her that way." Zunon's illustrations, with their vintage motifs, textured backdrops, and layered-looking set pieces, create a stage for the queenly central character. nell beram