The ACB with Honora Lee
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Think Little Miss Sunshine in an old-age home. A quirky, touching book in a beautiful package.
Perry's mother and father are busy people ... they're impatient, they're tired, they get cross easily. And they think that only children, like Perry, should be kept busy. On Saturday mornings Perry and her father visit her gran, Honora Lee, at the Santa Lucia rest home, but Gran never remembers them. 'Who is that man?' Honora Lee asks when Perry's father leaves the room. After movement class is abruptly cancelled, Perry is allowed to go to Santa Lucia on Thursday afternoons. She discovers her Gran has an unconventional interest in the alphabet, so Perry decides to make an alphabet book with the help of Honora and the others. Soon everyone is interested in Perry's book project. The ACB With Honora Lee unfolds with characteristic warmth, quirky, surprising humor and a rich cast of 'residents'. The story is a meditation on kindness and patience and acceptance; that of the very young and the very old. It's a story that will resonate with echoes of recollection for many -- from Perry's endearing perspective on the adult world to the embracing kindness of those who care for the elderly.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
New Zealand writer De Goldi's (The 10 PM Question) story of an only child's determined efforts to know and love her grandmother deserves a place in the pantheon of quiet, word-of-mouth classics. Perry's mother, a psychologist, has the nine-year-old scheduled up to the hilt ("Monday was piano with Gabriel.... Wednesday was clarinet with James"); her father jets off to conferences overseas. When Thursday's activity is cancelled, Perry proposes weekly visits to the nursing home where Gran is hospitalized with dementia, and a strange and touching friendship unfolds. Perry, who's as good at drawing as she is hopeless at everything else, begins assembling the alphabet book of the title Gran's name is Honora Lee and sets down with beguiling honesty all she sees at the nursing home ("W is for Walking Stick, which Melvyn uses as a Weapon"). Over time, it becomes clear that Gran's inability to recognize people does not mean that her life is any less precious or noble. Perry is funny and bewitching, and all the other characters, even the walk-ons, are equally engaging. O'Brien's curious diagram-illustrations pay appropriate tribute to Perry's admiration for the unconventional. Ages 10 up.
