Granny Left Me a Rocket Ship

The trauma of losing a loved one can be hard for a young child to understand and accept. Caregivers try to soothe the transition by giving the child valued objects or talking to them about special times or the lessons the loved one taught them.
In Granny Left Me a Rocket Ship, Governor General Literary Award finalist and winner of the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award for Ebb & Flow Heather Smith creates a character whose grandmother left him more than ‘stuff’ - she left them the power of imagination. Unfortunately, this story is far less moving and evocative for a reader than Smith’s The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota’s Garden. Her A Plan for Pops, (www.cmreviews.ca/node/273) while it does not deal with death, addresses profound change in an older adult and the fears it engenders in the child, much as death does.

Granny Left Me a Rocket Ship has a mere 113 words. Sixty-seven words are used to talk about how they remembered her and tick off the objects Granny bequeathed the other members of the family. The rest of the book - 21 pages - are a list of the imaginary items the character cherishes (one item per two-page spread) - a tent, a butterfly net, a beach umbrella, a fishing rod, a horse, a flagpole, a knight’s sword, a flying broomstick, a sea monster, and a rocket ship. The narrative is so sparse that there’s little connection between the reader and the character.

The hefting in this picture book is left to the excellently wrought cut-paper collages created by Toronto illustrator Ashley Barron whose interpretations are both precise and imaginative. The colours Barron chose are bright; the textures are interesting and will appeal to young children. The details invite inspection, from the sand on the beach to the couch cushions floating in the imaginary sea. There is much going on in each one. Grandma is clearly a hip, with-it lady who will do anything to inspire her grandchild. She is present in each vignette, applying suntan lotion, playing the tuba even though a sea monster is threatening to swamp their rowboat, riding on a unicorn and sprouting a mermaid tail. She’s a good grandma.

But the reader should not have to figure out the story from the pictures. There is simply not enough text to engage readers and to leave them satisfied. Children need words so that they will learn appropriate vocabulary as they grow, so they will be able to articulate their thoughts when they have these important moments in their lives.

As well as The Phone Book in Mr. Hirota’s Garden, other books that can be used to ease the reality of death are Graeme Base’s My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch, Waiting for the Whales by Sheryl McFarlane, The Memory Tree by Britta Teckentrump and