{"id":250,"date":"2020-11-23T13:55:37","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T13:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/?p=250"},"modified":"2020-11-23T13:56:12","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T13:56:12","slug":"the-acb-with-honora-lee-by-kate-de-goldi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/2020\/11\/23\/the-acb-with-honora-lee-by-kate-de-goldi\/","title":{"rendered":"“The ACB With Honora Lee” by Kate De Goldi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

with illustrations by Gregory O\u2019Brien<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I absolutely adored The ACB with Honora Lee<\/em>. It grabbed me the moment I opened it. I\u2019m always on the look out for books which help children and young adults to understand what it\u2019s like living with Dementia and I could instantly see how this book would appeal to mid-Primary aged children and help them process some difficult issues. Gregory O\u2019Brien\u2019s gorgeous illustrations explode across the inside cover and continue throughout, bringing main character, Perry\u2019s thoughts to life in what look to be a series of colourful mind maps. I particularly enjoyed the way the story and illustrations bring different perspectives to the forefront and yet also compliment each other superbly in this short novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perry is an only child with a very inquisitive outlook. Her favourite word seems to be why. She\u2019s trying to figure out the world around her by constantly bombarding the adults in her life with questions. Sometimes she gets the answers she\u2019s after. Often, she feels as if she\u2019s being fobbed off. Perry has a wonderful relationship with her gran, Honora. She\u2019s been Perry\u2019s go to person but now she lives in a retirement home called Santa Lucia. Perry still visits regularly, accompanied by her parents or more frequently, her childminder Nina and Nina\u2019s son Claude. They not only spend time with Honora but form a kind of community with the other residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within a few chapters it is clear that Perry\u2019s gran isn\u2019t the same as she used to be. Gran is confused and sometimes doesn\u2019t even recognise Perry. Perry finds this a bit distressing but instead of abandoning her trips to Santa Lucia, she tries to find a new way for them to connect. She begins to work with her gran on a school project, compiling a quirky and sometimes confused ABC of the older woman\u2019s life. Through the ACB (as Honora calls it), and time spent together, Perry comes to understand a little more of the illness her gran is living with and finds new ways to bond with her as she now is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strength of\u00a0The ACB with Honora Lee<\/em>\u00a0is to be found in the way Kate De Gold allows us to see Dementia through the eyes of a young child. Perry describes and explains things in her own childlike way and I found the tone she takes incredibly reassuring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo far, all Perry knew about Gran was her name \u2013 Honora Lee- and her age \u2013 seventy-six years old \u2013 and that she didn\u2019t have a husband or much memory any more, which was why she lived at Santa Lucia and could never get Perry\u2019s father\u2019s name right.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is an excellent resource for children who are learning how to live with a loved one who has Dementia. The tone is upbeat, fun and full of little quirks and yet the book doesn\u2019t shy away from some of the harsher realities of living with Dementia. There are plenty of opportunities presented by the story for talking about the sad and difficult changes Dementia can bring about. However, the message comes across loud and clear in both the written text and the illustrations. A special friend or loved one living with Dementia is still the same special friend or loved one. There are ways in which to continue enjoying your time with them and, if you\u2019re anything like Perry, you might even learn something in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ACB with Honora Lee was published by Hot Key Books in August 2015 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

with illustrations by Gregory O\u2019Brien I absolutely adored The ACB with Honora Lee. It grabbed me the moment I opened it. I\u2019m always on the look out for books which help children and young adults to understand what it\u2019s like living with Dementia and I could instantly see how this book would appeal to mid-Primary aged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,33,6,39,12,17,14],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-carers","tag-children","tag-family","tag-new-zealand","tag-novel","tag-residential-care-facility","tag-woman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}