Is Your Grandmother a Goanna

What a strange title for a book – Is Your Grandmother a Goanna. Given that my 5 year old son can’t read yet it must have been the picture on the front cover that made him want to take it out.

Maybe he was missing his grannies…

I couldn’t beliebe my eyes when I saw it on the NSW Premier Reading Challenge list. We had to include it on our reading list. Then I realised it was the great Pamela Allen who wrote it!

Book 10 of the PRC: Is Your Grandmother a Goanna

The Plot

 

A little boy travels on a train to go see his grandmother. At each station he looks out to see whether his grandmother is there. Each station has a different set of animals and at one of these stations are a group of Goannas.

 

Don’t know what a Goanna is – an Australian Monitor Lizard. They are actually quite ugly almost scary looking animals.

 

This story really makes goannas seem a lot nicer.

 

Thankfully, at the very last station the little boy sees his grandmother.

 

‘Have you seen my grandmother?’ asked the little boy.
‘There are only goannas here,’ replied the station master. ‘Is your grandmother a goanna?’

 

The book itself

Is Your Grandmother a Goanna is a short concise story. It is a perfect bedtime story. Not too long, easy to follow, a short story and a happy ending.

The book has a rhythm to it following the train as it steams out of the stations. There is also humour as the kids love it when he station conductor asks whether his grandmother is a walrus, or if she is a goanna.

 

 

Our booklist

 

At this stage of the challenge, we have also read: The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy and A Squash and a Squeeze. For more details on each book and in order to help you decide whether you want to add it to your list, just click on the name of the book and it should take you to the full review.

 

♦

NSW Premier Reading Challenge

If you don’t know about the NSW Premier Reading Challenge, it is an initiative by the department of education to promote literacy and reading. It is not a competition!

There is an extensive list of books on the website from which you choose the number of books you have to read. We have to read 30 because my son is in the K – Year 2 Challenge.

Once we read our book we add it to our booklist and if we get to 30 we get a certificate from the Premier.

You can find out more from the NSW PRC Website.