About book La Increíble Historia De... La Abuelita Gánster (2011)
This book intrigued me from both the title and author. Due to the author, being a very famous comedian, I could not wait to read this book, and it did not disappoint. Underlying the adventures and stories within the book is a very important lesson – to be grateful for those who are in your life. This story is very heart-warming, and differs from many children’s books at it has a rather sad end. Due to this, the vocabulary and the long nature of the book I would suggest this book is aimed at those in Key Stage Two-latter Key Stage Two if read independently. I loved the book-the adventures, the honesty of Ben, the emotions involved, the style of writing and the characters. Many children could relate to this book-which is another reason why it is so great!Ben feels unloved by his parents who are unhappy with his future choice of becoming a plumber-they want him to be a dancer. Ben stays with his Granny sometimes when his parents are out at dancing shows etc (they are obsessed with ballroom dancing). However, Ben dislikes this as he finds Granny boring. He sees her as an old woman who only plays scrabble and uses cabbage with EVERYTHING. The newsagent appears to play an insignificant role at the time when he told Ben to spend more time with his Granny and give her more of a chance-however this becomes the focal point to the book-which is made apparent when Ben’s Granny dies at the end of the book. Granny overheard Ben calling her boring and consequently told Ben that she was an international jewellery thief who had stolen everything she had wanted to-apart from the Crown Jewels. From this moment, the relationship between Grandson and Granny blossomed with Granny sharing some stories of her robberies, and both together concocting a plan to steal the Crown Jewels. The usage of London and the description of the city is informative-with some funny and great facts along the way, which makes reading the adventure even better! Ironically, Ben’s love of plumber aids this plan, only for the plan to fail at the final hurdle when the Queen catches them! It turns out that Granny made up all her adventures to make her appear more interesting to her Grandson-with having a real adventure along the way. During this escapade, Ben’s parents were worried sick about him and searched for him-showing that he is loved after all. Unfortunately the ending is sad, with Ben’s Granny dying of Cancer, however this is lightened slightly by the growing relationship between Ben and his parents as a result of this tragic event and both Ben and Granny being included in the Queen’s Christmas Day Speech!The story has so many hidden lessons-with the main one already highlighted above. Time is precious and people should make the most of this before it is too late. The serious topic of Cancer utilised within the book displays this. Additionally the importance of family is reiterated throughout the book –in terms of the relationship with parents and grandparents. Interestingly Walliams uses a cameo appearance of The Queen to highlight this whereby The Queen relates to Granny in terms of what her Grandchildren think of her. This shows how the elderly should be respected and loved. Furthermore, the way Ben followed his dream of plumbing despite his parents detesting this shows that we all have the ability to dream and reach these goals.Despite the meaningful lessons this book is very funny. The adventures Granny describes are brilliant, the description of Ben’s parents and their love of ballroom dancing is also humorous. Thus although serious in parts the book overall is hilarious-which is what I expected of Walliams. I absolutely loved the illustrations within the book-it complemented the book extremely well and gave a ‘Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake’ feel to the book. The book is very imaginative-it shows Granny using her imagination to make herself more interesting to her Grandson. This could be conveyed into the children’s writing whereby they could use their own imaginations to create some adventures-like Granny. Another brilliant aspect to the book is not just the story itself but the different literacy tools used such as: instructions (p43); Granny’s weekly agenda (p51 and 52); and lists. Therefore, the children themselves could utilise these tools through writing their own. Additionally historically and geographically this book could be used in the classroom through looking at London and the landmarks described within the book. Gangsta Granny is the story of Ben who hates spending Friday nights at his granny's house because she makes him eat a lot of cabbage and play Scrabble with her. Unbeknownst to him, however, his Granny used to be an international jewel thief known as the Black Cat. I decided to read this book by David Walliams mainly because I saw the version they made for TV last Christmas and quite enjoyed it then so was interested to see what the source material was actually like (plus who can resist a title like Gangsta Granny?). In some ways the book was better than the screen version and in other ways it was worse. I loved Ben's description of his parents and their obsession with ballroom dancing and Flavio Flavioli and the ending of the story is brilliant and surprisingly sad. I sort of think this would be a good book for children to explain what happens when people get old and it definitely encourages you to think about your own relationship with your grandparents. On the other hand, parts of the book seemed to drag certain jokes out for a bit too long - like the cabbage wind joke - but I can't tell if that's just because I'm not really the right age for the target audience of this one. Also, little features, like the never ending lists of various things, seemed like a forced humorous element, rather than a natural part of the story.All in all, I did enjoy this book, but I think I would've loved it more and laughed more if I was twenty years younger. 3 stars.
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this book is fantastic i like it but some of the words you copied from Rohol dahl s book
—wLIM
