From School Library Journal
Grade 3-6–An exquisite re-creation of an old man's life. The book begins as a boy visits his grandfather in the hospital (Grandpa loved telling stories. He told me stories whenever I went to visit him…) and then moves into the man's narrative of his charmed life, a life, as the wonderful gouache-and-ink illustrations emphasize, protected by the actions of the stone angel that stood in the town square. His boyhood included encounters with Nazi storm troopers (I was never a coward, although I didn't know how dangerous times were back then) and unimaginable losses (One day, [his Jewish friend] disappeared. I never saw him again, which made me very sad). Still, the elderly man concludes, All in all, it's been a beautiful life. The book is very difficult to classify–the starkly poetic text is perfectly paired with illustrations that gently add details to the story. The artwork has the loose but accurate compassion of Quentin Blake's work, and, like Blake, Bauer expresses both humor and pathos. Michael Foreman's
War Boy (Pavilion, 2000) describes an English childhood during World War II;
Grandpa's Angel captures part of the German wartime experience. It is a book to savor for its magical humanity.
–Kathleen Whalin, York Public Library, ME Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Gr. 1-3. In this unique and touching German import, a boy sits at his grandfather's hospital bedside, as the old man looks back on his life. He ruminates about many things, including almost getting run over by a bus and walking in dangerous neighborhoods. He recalls, "I was always the bravest. I climbed the highest trees and dove into the deepest lakes." What the audience sees that Grandfather doesn't is the guardian angel that followed him through his life, putting her hands over a robber's eyes and plucking him from the water. The angel was also there when Grandfather's Jewish friend was shipped off to a concentration camp (Where was that child's guardian angel?), and when he was taken into the army. The boy says one last good-bye to his grandfather and goes out into the square, where now, unbeknownst to him, he is followed by the selfsame angel. The ink-and-wash artwork is simply executed, but it is made more complex by the feelings it evokes. Philosophy may not be a primary-schooler's thing, but this book can begin a discussion of beliefs.
Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
