Today would’ve been my beloved grandmother’s 105th birthday; I was 18 days shy of my 13th birthday when she died, and I was literally the last person she spoke to before she died. She lived with us, and I didn’t realize it wasn’t the norm to live with your grandparents until I was in junior high. So in her honor, here are quotes from some of inter-generational books.
“I’ve heard tell that what you imagine sometimes comes true.”
If I Stay by Gayle Forman:
“It’s okay, If you want to go. Everyone wants you to stay. I want you to stay more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But that’s what I want and I could see why it might not be what you want. So I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. It’s okay if you have to leave us. It’s okay if you want to stop fighting.”
The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson:
Life’s a freaking mess. In fact, I’m going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: For those who revel in the essential mess that is life. Because Gram’s right, there’s not one truth ever, just a bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It’s all a beautiful calamitous mess.
and
I didn’t hear Gram come in,
or come up behind me,
just felt her arms slip around my shaking frame,
then the press of both her hands hard
against my chest, holding it all in,
holding me together.
Thank God she whispered,
before the doctor or I
could utter a word.
How could she possibly have known
that I’d gotten good news?
45 Pounds by K.A. Barson:
And while the shape of my family might not match other families – or even what I imagined it should be – some pretty amazing people make room for me, watch out for me, and love me. Sometimes, even when I don’t know it. Make it so I fit. No matter what
Bird by Crystal Chan:
Grandpa stopped speaking the day he killed my brother, John.
Scarlet by Marissa Meyer:
But her grandmother had never suggested she could think the same of Scarlet. “You’ll be fine,” she always said, after a skinned knee, after a broken arm, after her first youthful heartbreak. “You’ll be fine, because you’re strong, like me.”
Yes, we like grandparents in fiction too! The grandma in THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE is a great pick. The grandpa in THE CARDTURNER by Louis Sachar isn’t quite as present, but he’s important, and compelling.