Children’s book “Kati wants to be a grandfather”: La Grandpa Vita – Culture

There stands the lively little Kati in a group of old men who look as if the girl herself had drawn scrawls on the wall with a thick colored pencil. Not quite neat, the paint goes a bit over the lines everywhere. On top of each other, side by side, they hug each other and seem to be very happy. One enters Led Zeppelinshirt. Kati answered “grandfather” when asked what she wants to be when she grows up. The adults on the next double page react with laughter. They still have no idea that Kati has a wonderful role model for her plans for the future: her own grandfather, who only does “grandfather things”: playing the accordion with big hands, carrying lemon drops and matches in her pockets and getting supplies in the village shop on the second Sunday of the month to buy.

But the best thing about it is: “Grandfathers are never in a hurry. They wear a white cloud on their heads and push the days ahead as they please.” This light-hearted view of old age is unusual in books for young readers. It is often told how a family learns to deal with dementia, for example in Tatjana Mai-Wyss’ “Anna likes Grandma and Grandma likes apples” (Bohem). Or about grandparents dying, as with Michael Friemel and Jacky Gleich in “Oma Erbse” (Hanser).

The young Latvian author Signe Viška shows in her picture book “Kati wants to become a grandfather” what advantages it has for the grandchildren when a family member leads a visibly calm, content life. A life that children often don’t have in their hectic everyday life. With great ingenuity, Kati tries to become like her role model. She puts on thick gloves to have big hands, plays the accordion, packs matches and sweets in her pockets and lies on the sofa, having fallen asleep under the newspaper.

It only becomes problematic when she tries to grow cloudy white hair on her head as well. Just like Kati, the Latvian illustrator Elīna Brasliņa does not limit her imagination. The thick, bold strokes of colored pencil sweep across the pages, whirling up the girl’s ideas and fantasies, paying no attention to particular forms. So it’s almost a miracle that in the end they both sit quietly at the table, the two grandfathers, and “do the nicest grandfather things”.