Title: If I Could ……
Author: Grandma Krazy
Publisher: Xlibris
ISBN: 978-1-7960-4347-1
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Book
Pages: 24
Review by: Beth Adams
Pacific Book Review
If I Could …… is abound with chuckles from the creative and imaginative mind of author Grandma Krazy – a name which in and of itself made me LOL. With a loving and inspiring narrative written voice, Grandma Krazy brings a rhyming and a totally free imagination – without rules – to the youngsters reading this book, or having it read to them. Bees that don’t sting, Chimpanzees making honey, a futuristic world with moving sidewalks and school desks placed in swimming pools, while blue horses roam freely are just some examples. Whodathunk it? Grandma Krazy, of course.
In the every expanding and competitive genre of illustrated children’s books, I have seen the emergence of new types of books employing transgenerational humor, using newly created whimsical characters in amazingly fanciful worlds. Grandma Krazy uses one of the most finely tuned, albeit silly, senses of humor to grab kid’s imagination and allow them to further the absurdity of her uniquely creative world. By repeating the rhetorical question “What about you?” throughout the book provides a structured interaction for the parent reading the book to break away and enjoy the moments shaped by the text and illustrations within If I Could …… .
How about using pebbles, rocks and boulders instead of cash in department stores to pay for items? Or how about carrots and broccoli tasking like sweet cereal in a bowl? And what if dogs said “Please” when begging for food? Crazy? In essence, this book inspires a lesson of creativity to readers, not much unlike an introductory course in painting; having not only a starting point, but providing blank pages at the end of the book for children to draw what comes to their minds.
From the action words of onomatopoeia to the rhyming words showing animals doing silly things, Grandma Krazy is not crazy at all, but a skilled educator with substantial practice and experience in the maternal nurturing of children which glows on each page of If I Could …… . This is not a book to be passed over when compiling a children’s home library, as it would be one to reach for at bedtime over and over again.
