Grandad's Star

The little girl narrator adores her famous astronomer Grandad and loves listening at length to his star stories and learning the names of the stars and constellations. Grandad has even discovered seventeen new stars and hopes eventually to have one named after him.

One day though, her beloved Grandad starts forgetting things: he can’t find his possessions, nor the answers to questions, even the names of some of the stars elude him. To help him, Mum begins writing important things on a memory board. She likens the memories stored in our brains to ‘twinkles of stars, shining brightly or growing dim’ … explaining that there may be times when there aren’t any stars and that it’s OK to feel sad.

His granddaughter reacts to these cloudy times empathetically and with lots of patience, regaling him with stories of stars.

Together Mum and the little girl create something very special and very important. It’s called a ‘Grandad-scope’ and can show any star; but most importantly it’s able to find the slowly dimming twinkles of her beloved ‘Grandad Star’ that she names the Alpha Grandadi Lovliest.

This wonderfully warm story of intergenerational love shows a family responding to the dementia of a loved one. Older readers and adult sharers will likely draw parallels between the failing utility of Grandad’s old telescope and his fading memory described in the text.

Executed in gouache, pastel and pencil, debut illustrator Rhian Stone’s scenes at once evoke the vast splendour of the night sky, the distress and confusion surrounding dementia and the domestic detail of loving family relationships. Effectively dealing with a difficult topic this is a book to help children cherish their grandparents.