My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises

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Granny doesn’t answer. Elsa takes off her Gryffindor scarf and puts it in her lap. She was born on Boxing Day seven years ago (almost eight). The same day some German scientists recorded the strongest-ever emission of gamma radiation from a magnetar over the earth. Admittedly Elsa doesn’t know what a magnetar is, but it’s some kind of neutron star. And it sounds a little like “Megatron,” which is the name of the evil one in Transformers, which is what simpletons who don’t read enough quality literature call “a children’s program.” In actual fact the Transformers are robots, but if you look at it academically they could also be counted as superheroes. Elsa is very keen on both Transformers and neutron stars, and she imagines that an “emission of gamma radiation” would look a bit like that time Granny spilled Fanta on Elsa’s iPhone and tried to dry it out in the toaster. And Granny says it makes Elsa special to have been born on a day like that. And being special is the best way of being different. recomendo para todo mundo, mas principalmente praqueles que, dia após dia, precisam lembrar de transformar a saudade em amor potencializado. Granny, just say sorry for throwing turds at the police, and we can go home,” she snorts in the secret language, though still very expressly upset about that whole apartheid thing.

Her grandmother was a dysfunctional superhero in Elsa's world. A retired, 77-year-old doctor, who triggered the smoke-alarms at the airports with her smoking in the ladie's room with an open door; was asked to retire after refusing to stop smoking in the operating theater; spilled Fanta on Elsa's iPhone and tried to dry it out in the toaster; climb fences at the zoo in the middle of the night; threw policemen with turds; traveled all over the world to save lives when everyone else was rushing to get out and away from dire war situations. The novel suffers from a slow start. There is a fairy tale device that is interweaved into the narrative that never fully grabbed me, and it took me most of the book to buy into it. Other readers I know jumped right into that aspect of the text. To each his own, right? However, the last half of the book I thought was strong narratively, things started to fall into place for me with the fairy tale device, and from that point on I was fully in. Granny knew, and taught Elsa how to handle it through the fairy tales. Elsa learnt to run. Run very fast. She learnt to observe everything. She learnt to read and write properly. Grandma expected of her to read books to her while grandma drove her ancient rusting Renault around town, without a driver's license. Grandma could not spell. Almost-eight-year-old Elsa constantly had to correct granny's writing for her! Elsa started correcting everyone's writing. Even the notices at restaurants. She had Granny, Harry Potter, Wikipedia and Google at her disposal to get what she wanted. The words she did not understand, was added to her dad's word jar. Ah, come on, your mum can mend that,” says Granny, trying to be cheerful, giving her a little punch on the shoulder.Wading through this motley hoard of people, Elsa embarks on a voyage of her own, fumbling on realities at every step and growing wiser with every revelation. Reading quality literature like the Harry Potter series comes handy. And so does listening to (and reminiscing) Granny's fairy tales. After all, she is the Knight in the Land-of-Almost-Awake! At night Elsa runs to her grandmother's stories, to the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas. There everybody is different, and nobody needs to be normal. At this point too, I thought, my 12 year old needs to be in on this so, I let him listen to a few chapters and confirmed its a book for both young adults and adults. However, it is not long into the book when the fairly complex and very childlike fairytales seem to take over the real story. And one might be tempted to either skip the parts with the fairytale (which would prove tedious given how intertwined the fairytale parts are with the underlying real story) or give up reading the book altogether on the premise that for adults, the film (when it does come out) would be better tuned to keep adults engaged!! Granny turns in defeat to the policeman. “Do your children carry on like this?” The policeman looks uncomfortable.

Breaking into a zoo in the middle of the night? Firing a paintball gun from a balcony in her dressing gown? Granny shrugs and makes a brushing movement over the table, as if she thinks they’ve stretched this out long enough. The policeman notices the cigarette and eyes it dubiously. But one day someone decided she was too old to save lives, even if Elsa quite strongly suspects what they really meant by “too old” was “too crazy.” Granny refers to this person as “Society” and says it’s only because everything has to be so bloody politically correct nowadays that she’s no longer allowed to make incisions in people. And that it was really mainly about Society getting so bleeding fussy about the smoking ban in the operating theaters, and who could work under those sorts of conditions? Dystopian Fiction Books Everyone Should Read: Explore The Darker Side of Possible Worlds and Alternative Futures Just before Granny dies she presses an envelope into Elsa's hand, and asks her granddaughter to deliver a letter.The Kingdom of Miamas I swear sounded to me like Myalis, which sounds like a prescription drug for erectile dysfunction in my non-fantasy world. The animal which I guess was just a big dog but never called a dog sounded like it was called a Worse or Worser (reminding me of Wrong and Wronger ala Alec Baldwin). After digging around some, I find it was Wurse and Wurses, but I don't think that's an actual word. This dog/Wurse was constantly being fed chocolate, which is actually quite dangerous for our furry friends and should not be encouraged. Very dangerous. Little Elsa, 7 going on 8, was more like 7 going on 17. Much too smart and worldly for 7 going on 8, no matter how much she used Wikipedia. But the unimaginable happened just before Christmas. Grandma died of cancer. Elsa lost her only friend. What was it about death that was so devastating? "The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people left behind want to stop living"… However, grandma taught Elsa that life does not really end with the passing of a beloved. "You never say good-bye in the Land-of-Almost-Awake. You just say “See you later.” It’s important to people in the Land-of-Almost-Awake that it should be this way, because they believe that nothing really ever completely dies. It just turns into a story, undergoes a little shift in grammar, changes tense from “now” to “then.”She left a set of letters behind which would merged Elsa's two worlds. She would be introduced to the real people who were characters in the fairy tales, and who would open up a big world of possibilities to the seven-year-old heartbroken little girl. Bob Mortimer wins 2023 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction with The Satsuma Complex Elsa immediately Googles it on Granny’s phone. It takes her a few attempts—Granny’s always been a terrible speller. Meanwhile the policeman explains that they’ve decided to let them go, but Granny will be called in at a later date to explain the burglary and “other aggravations.”

The UK edition was published by Sceptre, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, in 2015 ( ISBN 9781444775839), with the title My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises. [2] Film and TV adaptations [ edit ] Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal. Some might call Elsa's granny 'eccentric', or even 'crazy'. Elsa calls her a superhero. And granny's stories, of knights and princesses and dragons and castles, are her superpower. Because, as Elsa is starting to learn, heroes and villains don't always exist in imaginary kingdoms; they could live just down the hallway. Elsa stole my heart, as was intended. I enjoy seeing children portrayed as trailblazers in a way, because they refuse to give in to conformity. Elsa doesn’t do this as an intentional rebellion, though. She is who she is and her ‘crazy grandmother’ encourages her.Granny does all she can to help Elsa through a hard time . Her parents are divorced and her mother and new partner are expecting a baby but worst of all Elsa is having a rough time at school . She has no friends and is constantly bullied. Granny gives this lonely little girl the gift of love and friendship and teaches her to cope by giving her a fairytale world in the Land-of-Almost -Awake. It captivated me at first but then I couldn't keep up with the details of the characters and the rules of this complex kingdom. But at some point I understood better who these characters were and just went with the flow because what is divulged about Granny's past will make you love her in spite of everything . I mean, this political correctness! It’s worse than apartheid for smokers in this bloody country nowadays!”

It’s got NOTHING to do with that apartheid thing!!! You compared not being able to smoke with apartheid and it’s not the same thing at all. It’s not even CLOSE!” She shouldn’t take any notice of what those muppets think, says Granny. Because all the best people are different—look at superheroes. After all, if superpowers were normal, everyone would have them. Granny stretches out her arms towards Elsa, a gesture that seems to say “You see!” Elsa just shakes her head and crosses her arms very hard. The northern European based Nordisk Film acquired the rights for the book for development in May 2018. [3] Audiobook [ edit ] After my dad died -when I was 4yrs old- (her son, Max, was only 34), ...she and I became exceptionally close. She died when I was 7. I may have only had those 3 special years with Granda Cookie.. but they were some of my best childhood memories.Anyway, I think the underlying stories of each of the characters were well thought of and the whole story in itself, very touching and delivered with both empathy and humour in good measure so preventing readers from drowning in sorrow or being torn apart by heartbreak. For Elsa that is her seventy-seven year old grandmother who regales her with stories that become like a secret communication between them. Her grandmother always comes to defense, is always in her corner, something Elsa desperately needs because she is a little different. This, of course, sets her up for a great deal of bullying at school, and causes her mother a good deal of exasperation at times.