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A review by apostrophen
The ACB with Honora Lee by Kate De Goldi
4.0
I read this book in two settings, and it's lovely.
The narrative here is deceptively simple: a young girl, Perry, making weekly visits to Santa Lucia, a home where her grandmother Honora Lee lives. Her grandmother has some form of deteriorating memory (perhaps dementia, perhaps Alzheimer's, it's never really spelled out) and doesn't actually know this little girl, who does quite love her grandmother.
Writing an abecedarium with her grandmother and the other residents and workers and the various people who feature in Perry's life becomes a project for Perry, and this forms the greater framework around the narrative. And in this framework is a world of charm.
Honora's memories aren't in any sense of order, and soon the ABC book becomes an ACB book, and as Perry works the alphabet in a random fashion, finding words that matter to herself or her Gran, what forms is a story of love and the kind of solidarity that can sometimes form between the old and the young, both of whom see the world through a different lens.
It was lovely to step into this world for two evenings, and I daresay I'll go looking for more from Kate DeGoldi.
The narrative here is deceptively simple: a young girl, Perry, making weekly visits to Santa Lucia, a home where her grandmother Honora Lee lives. Her grandmother has some form of deteriorating memory (perhaps dementia, perhaps Alzheimer's, it's never really spelled out) and doesn't actually know this little girl, who does quite love her grandmother.
Writing an abecedarium with her grandmother and the other residents and workers and the various people who feature in Perry's life becomes a project for Perry, and this forms the greater framework around the narrative. And in this framework is a world of charm.
Honora's memories aren't in any sense of order, and soon the ABC book becomes an ACB book, and as Perry works the alphabet in a random fashion, finding words that matter to herself or her Gran, what forms is a story of love and the kind of solidarity that can sometimes form between the old and the young, both of whom see the world through a different lens.
It was lovely to step into this world for two evenings, and I daresay I'll go looking for more from Kate DeGoldi.