Grandma’s Attic series shares humor and history

My Uncle Sam tells some whopper tales of his youth. Whether I shake my head in disbelief or share an instant belly life, I love hearing them.

Once during milking, a cow escaped and charged into the hayloft with Sam chasing after. When he got to the loft though, there was no sign of the cow. Upon further investigation, he found that the cow fell through the chute and lay stunned below. Miraculously, she wasn’t injured.

Hearing stories from our older relatives entertain us and help us to know them better as people. Similar stories are published in books such as The Grandma’s Attic Series by Arleta Richardson. The three I read were Grandma’s Attic, More Stories from Grandma’s Attic, and Still More Stories from Grandma’s Attic. Nine books make up the series. Middle grade readers will laugh at these stories much like I do with my uncle’s tales.

Grandma’s Attic series entertains

In these books, Grandma tells her granddaughter stories of her childhood. Grandma Mabel and her best friend Sarah Jane, who lived in Upper Michigan, got into plenty of mischief and scrapes without any help from modern conveniences.

I liked how Grandma told what she learned from each story. I also enjoyed learning about what her life was like in first, a log cabin, and then a house. People either walked or traveled by horse and wagon or buggy. Grandma lived when people kept a few cows for milk and chickens for eggs and hunted for their food and kept large gardens and sewed their own clothes, a time much different than many of us have experienced.

Fun way to learn history

Almost anything triggers a story: a quilt square, a shoe button, a lost mitten. Grandma tells of when she cut her hair, when she was jealous of a new girl, when she spread false news that spread really fast considering they had no telephone. She tells how she learned the importance of work when she took a day off and about the wisdom behind inspecting something before a purchase. She shares answered prayers and the blessings of an unexpected visitor. Some of her tales include animals such as a piglet that caused quite a scare and baby goats in the kitchen.

The story about the piglet dressed in doll clothes made me laugh. The story about the stranger made me think. Smelling a snowstorm was something new to me also. If only Pa could have been a meteorologist. I also loved the story about the backfired surprise party.

While the settings differ from modern times, readers relate to desires common to kids throughout the generations.

Children 8-12 will be entertained and learn history. In fact, these stories may prompt them to ask their own grandparents about what it was like for them at their age. Sharing such memories and conversations might generate their own little books. Recording these stories can then be shared with future generations, and the precious lives in them won’t soon be forgotten.