Reviews: (by author)

Josephine Nobisso. Illus. Maureen Hyde. Grandma's Scrapbook. Westhampton Beach, NY: Gingerbread House, 2000. ISBN 0-940112-05-1. $8.50 paperback.

Beautifully illustrated, as were all the books originally published by San Diego's now defunct Green Tiger Press, this paperback is evidently the sequel to a book I don't have, Grandpa Loved. The story is one of memories, those collected by the grandmother of herself and the child, now the adult narrator, as they grew together. The prose is lovely, poetic, pervaded by nostalgia for what once was but now only exists in the scrapbook. The twist is that the child-now-adult will continue to fill the pages of the scrapbook, since she has learned that what we might forget can be retained when collected, sparking memories. I wonder, though, how much a child would enjoy this story, actually a collection of someone else's snapshot memories with no plot or action. It seems more designed to encourage makers of scrapbooks, and for that, it does a lovely job.

A. Allison

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