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Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | PICTURE BOOK MCC | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | PICTURE BOOK MCC | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | PICTURE BOOK MCC | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
This #1 New York Times bestselling picture book adventure from Paul McCartney is perfect for Father's Day or any day when you're looking to celebrate the fun that grandparents and grandkids can get up to!
See the compass needle spin, let the magic fun begin!
Meet Grandude--a super-cool grandfather who is an intrepid explorer with some amazing tricks up his sleeve. Grandude is a one-of-a-kind traveler! With his magic compass, he whisks his four grandkids off on whirlwind adventures, taking them all around the globe. Join them as they ride flying fish, dodge stampedes, and escape avalanches! Brought to life with gloriously colorful illustrations from talented artist Kathryn Durst, Hey Grandude is the perfect bedtime story for little explorers and an ideal gift for Father's Day.
Author Notes
Paul McCartney is one of the most admired contemporary poets & songwriters. He lives in England.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Inspired by McCartney's own nickname and featuring a titular wink toward the Beatles' "Hey Jude," this picture book debut from the musical icon hits all the right notes in the tale of a cool grandfather, his magical compass, and his grandchildren: Lucy, Tom, Em, and Bob. The "Chillers," as Grandude dubs the foursome, are visiting for the weekend, but gloomy weather is thwarting their fun--"everybody was grumpy and too bored to be bothered." Enter Grandude with zingy green backpack, a handful of postcards and, like Mary Poppins before him, a mystical compass. The family rides flying fish, horses, and airborne cows in various locales, narrowly evading danger each time before being whisked to the next destination. An energetic refrain ("See the compass needle spin,/ let the magic fun begin!") and an onomatopoeic arpeggio ("Zing, bang, sizzle... everything changed!") set the pace for each brisk adventure--until Grandude sees the children home and tucked in for bed. Durst's colorful illustrations enliven the narrative with cartoon details and scrawled textures. An entertaining, if familiar, debut. Ages 4--6. (Sept.)
Guardian Review
An old rocker takes his bored grandkids for a ride in the former Beatle's safe second children's book. Is there a single celebrity who hasn't written a children's book? Madonna alone has published a dozen. Unwholesome curmudgeons, venal narcissists, the 1% - the Queen of Jordan is in on the act - all believe they are entitled to cobble together a mothwing of a plot whose holes are magically filled in by fairy dust. Moral high-ground natives such as Keith Richards and smiley, personable types like Bob Dylan have picture books on shelves. Paul McCartney got in early - Hey Grandude! is not the former Beatle's first foray into young minds. A decade ago, alongside Philip Ardagh and Geoff Dunbar, he put out High in the Clouds. Although the title may have suggested a lysergic post-Dr Seuss romp, High¿ was an environmental parable starring Wirral the Squirrel. A film has recently been green-lit after a decade languishing in pre-production. Although Ardagh must have had some input, the book's plucky orphaned protagonist and its anti-consumerist tilt felt very McCartney. Hey Grandude! is aimed at a younger audience. Grandude's hippy ponytail and purple jacket suggest an interesting youth. Whipping out some postcards of distant climes to entertain four bored grandchildren ("chillers") on a rainy day, he neglects to explain that they are like Instagram posts that were once inexplicably sent to your house on a piece of paper. The small people "ooh". Grandude whips out his magic compass (pace, Pullman) without explaining what this obscure shiny thing might be. All are swept off to the sandy beach in the picture. Fun times riding flying fish ensue, until a crab interrupts the carefree idyll with a toe-pinch. Even though the title rhymes with "hey Jude", and Grandude does pull out a guitar and serenade his charges, you struggle to detect the imprimatur of one of the 20th-century's creative greats here, or in the subsequent vignettes: the wild west, an alpine meadow. The best picture books do preposterous things with language and graphics. Canadian illustrator Kathryn Durst tries her best with this limited fare, but it's a pretty vanilla visual offering. The famous seem to miss the fact that intelligence is not wasted on the young: the con trick that Julia Donaldson's mouse plays on the Gruffalo is phenomenally sophisticated. Hey Grandude! might be endearing in its mizzly Englishness, but there is an all-round risk-averseness here that's puzzling. The book concludes with everyone safely tucked up in bed - tremendously comforting, aged four or 64. But every gleeful scenario ends badly, with Grandude and the chillers fleeing when some avalanche or stampede invariably kiboshes the thrills. Why didn't an editor ask McCartney to take this sad song and make it better?
Kirkus Review
Hanging out with grandad turns out to be anything but boring after he pulls out a very special compass and takes everyone on a magical mystery tour.A "gray and drizzly" day takes a series of exciting turns for Lucy, Tom, Em, and Boba racially diverse quartet of sibs (or maybe cousins) in Durst's fluid, informal cartoon scenesafter grizzled Grandude strides into the room. He has a compass that transports him and the "Chillers" with a "zing, bang, sizzle" to a beach, a desert, and a Swiss mountainside. Like the economical text, which aside from a quick refrain is all in prose, experiences at each stop take on a certain pattern as the children thrice enjoy their new setting but then need a quick spin of the compass to escape a flood of pinchy red crabs, mount horses but narrowly avoid a bison stampede, then abandon a picnic to clamber atop an obliging flying cow when an avalanche threatens. Despite the allusive title (and the "Grandude" moniker, which McCartney admits he cribbed from his own grandkids) there's no sign of the self-absorption that often rides celebrity picture books. Ultimately, the genial tour guide, who is white but otherwise looks nothing like the author and even plays guitar right-handed, spins the compass one final time to deliver the weary Chillers back home.Readers will roll up for repeats, and not just because of the name on the cover. (Picture book. 5-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
