Finding circles everywhere, a grandfather and his granddaughter meditate on the cycles of life and nature.
All Around Us is a My Take/Your Take feature for April 2018 and featured in a May 2019 WOW Currents.
All Around Us
Grandparents
A Year in Our New Garden
Anna and Benjamin’s family has just moved into their dream house and even though it’s in the middle of a busy town, it has a beautiful big garden for them all to enjoy. Soon the family has made plans for their perfect garden. Mum wants a lawn and a terrace, Dad wants to help the birds and insects, Benjamin wants to plant beautiful flowers and Anna wants to fill the garden with tasty vegetables.
Grandad’s Island
At the bottom of Syd’s garden, through the gate and past the tree, is Grandad’s house. Syd can let himself in any time he likes. But one day when Syd comes to call, Grandad isn’t in any of the usual places. He’s in the attic, where he ushers Syd through a door, and the two of them journey to a wild, beautiful island awash in color where Grandad decides he will remain.
Grandma Lives in a Perfume Village
Xiao Le’s grandmother lives in a faraway village. A visit with Grandma is always a special event, but this time she is frail. With encouragement from his mom, Xiao Le plays with and helps Grandma. When Grandma dies shortly thereafter, Xiao Le comforts his mom―reminding her that when it rains, Grandma is washing her clothes in the sky . . . and that although the Perfume Village in heaven cannot be reached by train, it can be accessed by the heart.
The Winter Place
Upon their father’s death, Tess and her younger brother, Axel, leave New York for their grandparents’ home in Finland, where they learn that a bear they both saw is the spirit of their mother, the strange man with her is the keeper of souls, and he wants Axel, already plagued with the disease that killed their mother, to replace him.
Winter’s Child
When Tom wishes winter would never end, he meets another boy who shares his love of snow and ice. Playing together every day, Tom doesn’t care that spring hasn’t come, until he realizes the terrible effect the unending winter is having on his sick grandmother. When he realizes his friend is Winter’s child, he knows they must say good-bye if the seasons are ever to change.
A Gift From The Sea (Hindi-English)
Rani spends a day at the beach and wants to take back a gift for her grandmother. She finds many things on the sand: a feather, a slipper, flowers, even a starfish.
My Tata’s Remedies/Los remedios de mi Tata
Tata Gus teaches his grandson Aaron how to use natural healing remedies, and in the process helps the members of his family and his neighbors.
Eat, Leo! Eat!
Leo wants no part of sitting down with his family to eat Nonna’s big, delizioso lunch every Sunday. “I’m not hungry,” he insists. Not hungry? Hmm. Clever Nonna gets an idea. She’ll use a story to lure Leo to her table. And since the pasta in her soup, called stelline (little stars), is woven into the story about a boy who journeys to his grandmother’s at night, it works. But again on the following Sunday, Leo doesn’t want to eat. So Nonna expands her story, this time adding some chiancaredde (paving stones), the name of the pasta she’s serving that day, to create a path for her character to follow. Now Leo’s hooked.
The Elephantom
When a phantom elephant turns up uninvited and starts getting a little girl into trouble, she has no idea how to make him go away. But her grandmother happens to have a menagerie of phantom pets herself, so she knows just who to go to for help?