MY HIPPIE GRANDMOTHER

Famed author Lindbergh, in a much lighter poetic vein than On Morning Wings (2002), limns a bouncy and exuberant rhyme wherein a girl extols her hippie grandma: “She hasn’t cut her hair at all / Since nineteen sixty-nine.” Not only that, but she drives a purple bus, has a mustachioed, guitar-playing boyfriend named Jim, and a cat named Woodstock. The girl helps her grandmother in the garden, and helps her sell goods at the Farmers Market as well as to picket City Hall when necessary. “My mother is a lawyer. / My dad works on TV,” says the girl, and grandma tells her she will find her own perfect job, perhaps “find the cure for cancer / And save the human race.” But she knows that she wants to be a Hippie Grandmother herself, some day, “JUST LIKE YOU!” The pictures are a wonder, in electric kool-aid acid colors, full of sunshine and love beads and tie-dye. Carter (The Invisible Enemy, not reviewed, etc.) has an energetic line; her watercolor and gouache figures fairly dance off the page. Grandma’s home, with its colorful pottery, array of plants, and occasional ’60s artifact (don’t miss the lava lamp), is utterly engaging. For children who may have such a grandma, or know such a grandma, and for more than a few adults who may recognize themselves in the words and pictures: a sheer delight. (Picture book. 4-8)