Is Your Grandmother a Goanna? was written by Pamela Allen and published by the Penguin Group in 2007.
I figured the book was about a grandmother that was eaten by that big reptilian beast on the front cover. I thought the word ‘goanna’ sounded like an Australian saying the word ‘goner’. Well, I decided to look up the word goanna and it’s a type of reptile found in Australia... some can grow up to two meters long.
Is Your Grandmother a Goanna? is about a young boy who has to travel by train to meet his grandmother. Every station that he gets off at has animals roaming around (this includes hippos, walruses, elephants and gorillas -- all big animals) and he has to get back on the train. Eventually he gets off at the right station and gives grandma a big hug. The end.
This story relies on repeating the same sequence six times. The words during the trip and at the train station are all the same (except for the animal names) so there’s a certain rhythm to the story. If this book is to be read out aloud, it requires quite a bit of hamming up since the train is supposed to get faster and faster... chuffa chuffa!
The boy in this story seems fairly innocent. I wonder why his parents didn’t tell him which station to get off at. It’s nice to see the train conductor change position every time the journey starts again. The grandmother at the end of the story is chubby which I think is a great idea... there are lots of chubby grandmothers all over this world.
The text and the pictures stick to the same pattern throughout (text at the bottom of both pages and illustration taking up roughly 6/10th of the top two pages). The illustrations are well done in this story and train looks long enough.
The story is repetitive but I’m sure little children would enjoy hearing the onomatopoeic expressions of the train in this story.
My only criticism would be to get rid of the word goanna for the international market... I’m sure most people in Canada have no idea what a goanna is. Dragons... komodo dragons... giant lizards, specific dinosaur names, might work better.
I’m not really sure what the point of this story is. The boy is awfully brave for taking the train alone and isn’t afraid to ask the station masters about his grandmother. Maybe the theme of the story is for kids to continue asking questions (even if it’s the same question over and over).
I’d recommend this book mostly because it’s weird.
