Getting Us to Grandma's

The story about a family and a road trip, Nadia L. Hohn and TeMika Grooms bring readers a very relatable and familiar story in Getting Us to Grandma’s.

Nikki and her family are heading on a road trip from Toronto, ON to the Bronx, New York for her Uncle’s wedding. They pack all the essentials for the 500 mile, non stop trip in the family vehicle. 

Nadia L. Hohn has eloquently encapsulated the 1980s road trip. This story is so very familiar and would be for many parents sharing stories with their children today. I remember packing the minivan to head from Ottawa to Niagara Falls every summer to spend time at my Grandparent’s house and even though the trip was a familiar one, I loved looking through the old map book to see the names of the cities as they went by.

I love how Nadia shows the pride Nikki feels at helping her dad navigate through the streets of New York. Sometimes we don’t give children enough credit for the challenging tasks they can accomplish. Learning to navigate using a map is a skill that is being left behind in the digital age but one that can hopefully be revived through Nadia’s road trip story. At the very least, this is a wonderful book for educators to use to begin a mapping unit in social studies or math.

TeMika Grooms illustrations are a delight. Her pictures completely transported me back in time and made me feel nostalgic for the days when the roads were a little more open. I love how her illustrations will spark remembrances and conversations between adults and children about life when the adults were still kids and how things have changed and also stayed the same.