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The illustrations in ‘Gangsta Granny’ by Tony Ross are lovely, however they don’t quite compare with those from the wonderful pen of Quentin Blake in ‘Mr Stink’. And while I do realise that I am of course also not the intended audience with regard to Gangsta Granny and likely with David Walliams' oeuvre in general, truth be told, even as a child reader, the on the surface stereotypical silliness and lack of textual depth and nuances that I have found in Gangsta Granny would also and equally have majorly bothered if not actively infuriated me.
They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. Gangsta Granny is a British children's comedy fiction book, written by David Walliams, illustrated by Tony Ross and published by HarperCollins. Due to his obnoxious parents’ desire to have the night to themselves once per week (so they can watch their celebrity dance shows on the telly) Ben is shipped off to his grandmother’s bungalow every Friday evening.Could you create a new, more exciting timetable with lots of different activities at various times each day? Superior to the awful follow up that came in 2022, it's a bit of an oddity, but for a bit of Christmas family fun it's a decent watch, 6/10. In poking fun at their obsession with the dancing show, Walliams is also I guess poking fun at his own world (I only discovered that he is a judge on Britain’s Got Talent when I wrote a post about this book some time ago). Created in partnership with Harper Collins, this lesson pack is the perfect way to excite and engage children in writing!
His shenanigans with his ‘gangsta granny’ take up the first two acts of the book and they are hilarious. She, being above the law, can apply it in the spirit of fairness, rather than with the lack of humanity the police will do when it is an easy job and will bring them kudos. Then he discovers that his Granny isn’t quite what she seems, and life takes a dramatic turn for the better. In front of the Queen, Granny claims that the jewellery in her box is plastic and that she had made up the story when she had realised how boring Ben thought she was. In fairness to the boy she does stink of cabbage,” agreed Mum, as she applied some last minute lip-liner.Thank you for writing a book like this and please keep writing them because you make them so amazing and interesting. Now just be quiet please, Ben, there’s a good boy,” replied Dad firmly, as he turned up the volume on the stereo. I have just finished reading it with my daughter who is in year 4 and she absolutely loved and couldn't put it down. But he finds poor Granny rather boring because she is your typical old lady with white hair, and false teeth, who unfortunately smells of cabbage (and cooks everything, including cake, with cabbage—there’s even a “recipe”), and only likes to play scrabble with Ben, and read endless gangsta novels.
Whether you’re looking for fun activities to do at home with your children or in school with your class, you’ve come to the right place!If the other David Walliams novels on my Goodreads to-read list are as stereotypical, as ridiculously (artificially) silly and as lacking in depth and even rudimentary character development as his very much personally annoying and frustrating to and for me Gangasta Granny has in my humble opinion been (and yes, which I did try to at least mildly appreciate for its featured contemporary United Kingdom cultural content but which truly ended up being just so annoyingly on the surface and so tediously boring and eye-rollingly frustrating that I had to abandon it, that I chose not to continue reading Gangsta Granny), I will probably have to consider that David Walliams as an author is more than likely absolutely not for me.
It contains some of the lazy kids writing tropes I really dislike - adults whose clear stupidity is marked by their no-hoper working class jobs (because no nail technician ever had capacity for independent thought and critical analysis), overly signalled plot developments, jokes which are just cliches ranked up to 10, and total disdain for believability or coherent world building. And what we learn is that jewels, or glittery glass have the same ability to bring wonder and happiness. The development of the relationship between Gangsta Granny and grandson Ben is well done as Granny becomes a hero in Ben's eyes, and their caper is awfully fun, especially the surprise at the end.Once inside the White Tower, the duo is met by Queen Elizabeth II (played by Joanna Lumley), who pardons them, in keeping with tradition, as the last person to attempt to steal the Crown Jewels was also pardoned. Ben's parents disapprove of him being a plumber, as their ambition for their only child was to be a professional ballet dancer like the one they used to watch every Friday. I think of all the books of David Walliams, that this was the best of them, it's a sweet, fun read, with some interesting, defiant characters, people that have broken free or the moulds that society places them. GANGSTA GRANNY is a hilarious and heartfelt story of old age, adventure, stolen jewels and swimming the Thames!
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