I Miss My Grandpa
“What did Grandpa look like?” a young girl asks. Her grandma describes her grandpa in terms of physical traits of extended family members the girl knows. Her grandpa had a face shaped like her youngest uncle, Mason; eyes like her middle uncle, Chang-Zi; a nose like her eldest uncle, Leo; and so on. Each of those relatives shares a memory of her grandpa—something that is concrete yet grounded in feeling. “When your grandpa looked at the world, he was quiet and patient like a crocodile. When he closed his eyes, his imagination sparked,” says Uncle Leo. Her Aunt Zai-Zi, whose mouth is most like her grandpa’s, describes her grandpa’s voice in the stories he told: “he had a dove’s voice, duck’s voice, lion’s voice, lamb’s voice … and countless other voices.” Even though she never met her grandpa, the girl misses him. “You can meet him in your heart,” her grandma says. This unusual, emotionally resonant picture book features a Chinese family and is translated into Mandarin on the end papers, where it also appears in pinyin. ©2020 Cooperative Children’s Book Center
Illustrated by Jin Xiaojing
CCBC Age Recommendation: Ages 4-8
Age Range:
PreK-Early Elementary (Ages 4-7)
Grades 3-5 (Ages 8-10)
Format:
Picture book
Subjects:
Bilingual Books
Chinese and Chinese Americans
Families
Grandfathers
Grief and Loss
Mandarin Language
Memory
Diversity subject:
Asian
Publisher:
Little, Brown
Publish Year: 2019
ISBN: 9780316417877
CCBC Location: Picture Book, Xiaojing