The Granny Project [Paperback]

Ivan, Sophie, Tanya and Nicholas overhear their parents discussing putting their elderly and sometimes dotty grandmother into a home and decide they must do something. Hence the Granny Project is born. They do eventually succeed in keeping Granny at home, by taking on much of the responsibility of caring for her themselves. Anne Fine again manages to tackle a sensitive subject with dignity and humour, while not denying the problems faced by families in this situation. (10 yrs +) (Kirkus UK)

More bright, knife-edge humor from the author of The Summer House Loon (1979), this time in a more earnestly juvenile story of the four Harris children and their scheme to keep Granny out of a nursing home. We are introduced to the Harrises through the family doctor's eyes, in a splendid, unflattering opening scene that makes the kids look like ill-bred gluttons and their mother, "the beautiful Natasha,' a slovenly and heartless monster. Harry Harris, the kids' father and Granny's son, is no more sentimental: "I've found a use for her at last," he says of his mother at one point. "We'll prop her up in the front window to frighten off the Avon Lady." The project, conceived by Sophie as a joint social-studies effort but carried out more resolutely by the single-minded Ivan, will be an uncensored record (complete with "charts and appendices") of one family's problems with an aged member. Ivan's plan is to blackmail his father, who teaches at the same school: he'll hand in these scandalous revelations unless the parents agree to keep Granny at home. (The two younger children, resentful of their lesser role, are to back up the effort with nightmares about an incarcerated Granny.) But Sophie, and readers too, begin to sympathize with the middle generation that must cope with soiled sheets, irrational middle-of-the-night demands, and disapproving looks from strangers at the polling place who think Dad is forcing Granny to vote his way when it's really she who's insisted on coming along. And when Mr. Harris agrees to Ivan's demand on the condition that the children take over Granny's care while the parents go off to dancing, woodshop, and language classes, Ivan finds himself with a full-time job. But he proves devotedly attentive to Granny, and when she finally dies it is he, who had seemed the "fanatic" with noble ideals and no feelings, who feels it hardest. Fine stoops to a too-pat and too-shallow resolution in Ivan's ultimate, premature decision to become an industrial organizer - the end result of his troubled mulling over feelings vs. ideals, revolution vs. small improvements. But this is not central to the story, and overall her sparkling rendition of the kids' subversive scheming is a perpetual delight. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Explore themes of ageism, family roles and parenting in this funny drama by award-winning writer Anne Fine

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

When Natasha and Henry find they can't care for Granny at home any more, they decide to put her in a nursing home. But their children, Ivan and Sophie and the younger two, Nicholas and Tanya, can't imagine life without their Granny and launch a full-scale attack to upset the plan. Nicholas and Tanya are in charge of having tantrums and nightmares about Granny going away, while Ivan and Sophie write the devastating 'Granny Project': a full account of their grandmother's life for the social science class. Their blackmail pays off and their parents allow Granny to stay, but there's a catch: all the cleaning, nursing and caring they used to do will now have to be done by the children. Natasha and Henry want their lives back, and quickly set about joining dance classes, going out and living it up. The children try to keep their side of the bargain but it's too hard. The family comes together again, everyone joining in to help with Granny up until she dies a few months later.

Blackmail - or negotiation?

Mum and Dad reckon things would be better if Granny were in a Home.

The kids all want her to stay.

Ivan's Granny Project should make his parents think again.

But there's more than one way of doing a project - and blackmail can work two ways...

A savagely funny tale from multi-award-winning author ANNE FINE.

Shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Award

'Clever, funny and thoughtful' TLS

'Both audacious and heart-warming' New Statesman

0 552 554383

www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Anne Fine has been an acknowledged top author in the children's book world since her first book was published in the mid l970s, and has now written more than forty books and won virtually every major award going, including the Carnegie Medal (more than once), the Whitbread Children's Award, the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, the Smarties Prize and others. The Children's Laureate from 2001-2003, Anne is also very funny and young readers love her lack of hypocrisy about the family and her honesty about how people can behave.She lives in the North-East.

'One of the sharpest and most humorous observers of the human condition writing today for the young' School Librarian

'She is translated into 26 languages and has regularly won every major children's literary award in the land, including the Carnegie Medal twice and the Whitbread Children's Novel award twice . . . There are few more influential, or more unfailingly intelligent, authors at work' Scotsman

'A subversively wicked gift for exploring family tensions' Independent

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.