Customer Reviews

Grandma's Purple Flowers

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Using vibrantly colored collages, author/illustrator Adjoa Burrowes (illustrator of "My Steps," a Parent Choice Award winner) offers young readers not only a warm intergenerational story about a young girl and her grandma, but a look at how Hyacinth works her way through her grandma's death. Enhanced with acrylics and watercolors, the three dimensional effect of the pictures will give readers the feeling of traveling along with Hyacinth as she goes through the park and down the hill to regularly visit her grandma. "A big hug and a smile are always waiting" for her. She gives grandma purple flowers that she has picked along the way and grandma offers her sweet corn muffins. Hyacinth enjoys the freedom of making the journey through the park as much as she enjoys doing simple activities with grandma - baking and hair combing. While raking leaves, Hyacinth asks her grandma, "Why do leaves have to fall and die?" Grandma replies, "Everything has its time." One winter day, Hyacinth visits her grandma and finds her ill. Grandma eventually dies and the young girl cries and mourns her beloved grandparent all winter. She must find a way to overcome her grief. In the spring, she finds a way to cope with her loss. In a youthful manner, Burrowes' illustrations match the mood shifts of the story, from exuberant with smiling houses, to sorrowful with an empty park bench surrounded by dirty gray snow. There are many fanciful details in the illustrations as well as subtle ethnic details in the story. This is an important book about the natural life cycle and coping with death. It parallels the seasons and the growth cycle of plants. Burrowes handles this subject with confidence and with an updated feel by using an African-American family.

Grandma's Purple Flowers is a tender, loving story of a child's attachment to her grandmother, who she loves to pick purple flowers for, and the closeness they share. They discuss the changing of seasons and how the leaves fall and flowers die-everything has its time. Then one night her grandmother dies. The child grieves, but soon realizes that when the purple flowers bloom they remind her of her grandmother. The illustration of the seasons is beautiful.

I read this book at the library to my 3 daughters. It started conversation around the coming death of my mother, their grandmother. She is terminally ill with cancer and she has a short time here with us. This book helped my girls to see that even though it may hurt to not see their grandma again they can cherish the good memories they have of her. I would reccommend this book to anyone who wants to prepare a child for loss of a loved one.