Author: Arleta Richardson
ISBN: 9780781403795
Publisher: David C. Cook

In Grandma’s Attic is an entertaining children’s book about a young girl, Arleta, who enjoys listening to her grandmother’s stories about when she was a girl, growing up in a small town.  There are twenty-one stories in total, all beginning with the young girl talking with her grandmother, and then her grandmother proceeding to tell her a story.  It is a nice book that I am sure will delight older children who can read, and it is also the type of book that you could read to younger children.  

The stories are based on real stories that the author’s grandmother told her.  All are interesting and fun to read. Most of the stories contain morals.

There are a few illustrations included in the book that help to bring alive some parts of the stories.

The book relates tales from a time long before modern technology, before cars, telephones, computers; before many of the things we take for granted today were even in existence, at least in the small town where Arleta’s grandmother grew up. It’s a bit of a social history book too in that sense, and takes the reader back to another era.

The writing style is captivating and engaging, and the stories are full of vivid description, taking the reader back in time to an enchanting place.
The young girl in the book, learns many things from her grandmother’s tales, including one of the most important and surprising things to her: that her grandmother was a child once; a young girl like her who was also capable of doing the wrong things and getting into trouble for not listening to her parents.  By telling the stories, the grandmother also imparts wisdom about things she learned as a young girl.

Young Arleta finds many things in her grandmother’s attic and it seems that all of these items hold a story waiting to be told; for example the piece of red fabric that used to be part of her grandmother’s bonnet as a girl; the flowery fabric that used to belong to one of her dresses; or the buttons that were once fastened to her grandmother’s shoe.
The young girl also takes a trip to the house where her grandmother grew up and learns even more about the way of life in another era.

Even though about a hundred years or more have passed since Arleta’s grandmother was a girl, I’m sure children will be able to relate to the stories told by the author’s grandmother and her sense of adventure and curiosity.