Don't Call Me Grandma

"A lot of children’s books have a doting older relative hovering around, looking cuddly and offering cookies and hugs. Don’t Call Me Grandma has a fully realized character who upends those stereotypes. The “Grandma” of the title is Great-Grandmother Nell, 96 years old, with wrinkled “chocolaty brown” skin, who wears pearls every day, doesn’t hug and eats fish for breakfast. Nell is prickly and sometimes scary, but to her great-granddaughter, the narrator, she is also fascinating, with her crowded vanity, the glass she’s always sipping out of, and the bedroom that’s fit for a princess. Elizabeth Zunon’s illustrations are genius — mixed media that allows some of Nell’s memories to be sharper than others. There are civil rights-era photographs, a lone ticket to Alvin Ailey, an I Voted sticker. Vaunda Nelson spells out neither Nell’s past, nor the message of the book, allowing readers the best ending: a conversation about what makes us who we are, and the pleasure of loving difficult people. (For ages 4 to 8)"