HOME SCHOOL BOOK REVIEW
Book: If I Had as Many Grandchildren As You…
Author: Lori Stewart
Illustrator: Gerry Takigawa
Publisher: Palmar Press, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0-9839293-0-7
Related website: www.ifihadasmanygrandchildrenasyou.com (book), http://palmarpress.com (publisher)
Language level: 1
(1=nothing objectionable; 2=common euphemisms and/or childish slang terms; 3=some cursing or profanity; 4=a lot of cursing or profanity; 5=obscenity and/or vulgarity)
Reading level: Ages 3 and up with their grandparents and great-grandparents
Rating: 5 stars (EXCELLENT)
Reviewed by Wayne S. Walker
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Stewart, Lori. If I Had as Many Grandchildren As You… (published in 2011 by Palmar Press, P. O. Box 6444, Carmel, CA 93921). If you are a grandparent, how many grandchildren do you have? If you’re not, how many grandkids do your grandparents have? Did you know that there reported to be between sixty and eighty million grandparents currently in the United States? As this book opens, a grandparent is besieged by “a gaggle of grandchildren.” A plan for adventure and fun for them had been promised, but none had yet been thought of. All of a sudden, a huge lion in a red baseball cap appears in the garden. Named “Grand Paws,” he offers some sage advice on the things he’d like to do, places he’d like to go, sites he’d like to see, and lessons he’d like to teach, “if I had as many grandchildren as you.” What kind of fun activities can you imagine that kids and their grandparents might do? Author Lori Stewart uses highly inventive and catchy rhyme to tell this warm-hearted story that grandparents will enjoy reading aloud to their grandchildren.
One concept which is unfortunately being lost in our increasingly mobile society is a multi-generational vision, so anything which will help grandparents to connect more with their grandkids, and vice versa, is to be applauded. I especially appreciate the following suggestion by Grand Paws:
“I wouldn’t stop there…there’s much more I would do,
If I had as many grandchildren as you!
I’d teach them to work, and to play and to pray—
A little of each, and a little each day.”
In addition, there are 41 luscious, color photographs to illustrate what Grand Paws says. Have you ever seen a “circumzenithal arc”—in other words, an upside-down rainbow—caused by sunlight hitting hexagonal ice crystals? Did you even imagine such a thing to be possible? If I Had as Many Grandchildren as You would make a perfect gift for children to give to their grandparents, and for anyone to give to somebody who is or is about to become a grandparent.
