{"id":5267,"date":"2017-10-06T14:07:06","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T18:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=5267"},"modified":"2017-10-06T14:07:06","modified_gmt":"2017-10-06T18:07:06","slug":"book-review-my-grandmother-told-me-to-tell-you-shes-sorry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-my-grandmother-told-me-to-tell-you-shes-sorry\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: My Grandmother Told Me To Tell You She’s Sorry"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

My Grandmother Told Me To Tell You She\u2019s Sorry<\/em> by Fredrik Backman<\/p>\n

Atria Books, 2016<\/p>\n

ISBN-13: 9781501160486<\/p>\n

Available: Hardcover\/Kindle edition\/Audio Download\/Compact Disc<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Elsa is seven, \u201cgoing on eight”. Her world looks bleak: she is too mature for her age. and is bullied and friendless at school.\u00a0 Elsa\u2019s parents are divorced.\u00a0 She lives with her mother, who is tied up in her work and has little time for Elsa.\u00a0 Fortunately, she has a tight bond with her grandmother.\u00a0 Granny is seventy-seven, a retired doctor with a mysterious past.\u00a0 For many years, she travelled the world helping others caught up in disasters, but spent little time at home raising Elsa\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

Every evening at bedtime, Granny tells Elsa tales about a fantastic world called the \u201cLand-of-Almost-Awake.\u201d\u00a0 That world has kingdoms with battling armies, princesses, heroes and beasts.\u00a0 Granny and Elsa have a secret language.\u00a0 One kingdom is named \u201cMiamas\u201d because Elsa called pajamas, \u201cmjamas\u201d, when she was younger.<\/p>\n

As the story progresses, the separation between the fantasy world and the real world becomes obscured.\u00a0 Elsa, her mother, and Granny live in separate flats in an old apartment building.\u00a0 Tenants in the other flats are cantankerous and quirky.\u00a0 Some might have superpowers and unknown connections to Granny\u2019s past.\u00a0 Most are human, but two tenants, who are never seen, might not be.\u00a0 They are a hooded giant known as\u00a0 \u201cMonster\u201d, and the \u201cWurse\u201d, a huge, hairy canine.<\/p>\n

Then Granny dies, leaving Elsa the task of delivering letters of apology to some of the tenants, as well as other people she has known.\u00a0 Can Elsa evade malevolent creatures from the fantasy world she created with Granny as she tries to carry out Granny\u2019s wishes?\u00a0 Will she learn who the tenants really are. and what Granny really did in her other life?<\/p>\n

My Grandmother Told Me To Tell You She\u2019s Sorry<\/em> perceptively and sympathetically portrays an exceptional, young girl\u2019s struggle to fit into a world in which she is too mature for her peers, yet excluded from the secrets of adults.\u00a0 When her Granny dies, Elsa loses her sanctuary and must try to reconcile her fantasy world with reality.\u00a0 The characters are well drawn, and the plot moves along with an appropriate pace.\u00a0 Fredrik Backman has written two other novels, A Man Called Ove<\/em> and Britt Marie Was Here.<\/em>\u00a0 These novels also describe the dilemmas and problems misfits encounter in the world of ordinary people. Highly recommended for older children, teens, and adults.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by: Robert D. Yee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Grandmother Told Me To Tell You She\u2019s Sorry by Fredrik Backman Atria Books, 2016 ISBN-13: 9781501160486 Available: Hardcover\/Kindle edition\/Audio Download\/Compact Disc   Elsa is seven, \u201cgoing on eight”. Her world looks bleak: she is too mature for her age. and is bullied and friendless at school.\u00a0 Elsa\u2019s parents are divorced.\u00a0 She lives with her<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2568,34,3062,2190,473,2699,41],"class_list":["post-5267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bullying","tag-childrens-books","tag-coming-of-age-stories","tag-contemporary-fantasy","tag-fantasy-fiction","tag-grief-in-fiction","tag-ya-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5267"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5436,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5267\/revisions\/5436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}