Grandpa’s Great Escape by David Walliams is a funny and sad adventure for 9 year olds about a boy whose grandpa is still fighting the Battle of Britain.<\/p>\n
Grandpa flew a Spitfire in the war. These days he has started forgetting things. Little things at first, like the dozen cups of cold tea lined up on his kitchen table.<\/p>\n
Then bigger things. What year it is. Whether his wife is still alive. One day he stops recognising his own son.<\/p>\n
What he hasn’t forgotten is the war. In his head he is still up there in his plane, and he acts it out wherever he happens to be. (He once decided a supermarket trolley was a Lancaster bomber and bombed the aisles with bags of flour. He is banned from that supermarket for life.)<\/p>\n
Everyone in the family finds this very hard. Everyone except Jack.<\/p>\n
Jack is twelve and shy and happiest in his bedroom with his model planes hanging from the ceiling on fishing wire. Grandpa’s stories are the best thing in his week. Jack works out something the grown ups have missed. Grandpa is playing, so all you have to do is play too.<\/p>\n
The story properly kicks off at half past two in the morning with a phone call. Grandpa has gone missing again. Dad is already out driving round town in his pyjamas. Jack goes looking on a trike he was given second hand for his third birthday, with his mother standing on the back in her fluffy pink nightgown.<\/p>\n
You’ll laugh at one page and feel a bit sorry for everyone on the next. Mum works the cheese counter at the supermarket and arrives everywhere in a waft of blue cheese. She sighs theatrically. Dad is an accountant who bottles everything up and cries where he thinks nobody can see. They are both very funny and both clearly worn out.<\/p>\n
Something you’ll want to know going in. Grandpa’s confusion sits right at the heart of the story and nothing fixes it. The book says plainly that it is serious, that there is no known cure and that it will probably get worse. It never gives the condition a name. Jack’s grandmother was killed in a bombing raid over London when his dad was a baby, and that’s told as family history rather than something you watch happen.<\/p>\n
If your child has a grandparent going through anything like this, some of it will land very close to home. That might be the reason it helps. It might also be too much just now and you’ll know which.<\/p>\n
Escape from Shangri-La is a good one to follow this with. Cessie’s grandad turns up on the doorstep after fifty years away, his own memory not what it was, and she is the only one in the house who wants him to stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grandpa’s Great Escape by David Walliams is a funny and sad adventure for 9 year olds about a boy whose grandpa is still fighting the Battle of Britain. Grandpa flew a Spitfire in the war. These days he has started forgetting things. Little things at first, like the dozen cups of cold tea lined up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10940,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7339,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Escape from Shangri-La","lr_seo_hook":"A boy plays along when his grandad believes he is still flying Spitfires."},"book_tag":[23],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[248],"class_list":["post-7549","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-funny-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-david-walliams"],"yoast_title":"Grandpa’s Great Escape by David Walliams | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A boy plays along when his grandad believes he is still flying Spitfires. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n