Living your best life

 Grandpa Frank's Great Big Bucket List by Jenny Pearson (Usborne, 2022)

In Jenny Pearson's latest novel, as with her previous two books, humour gilds a poignant heart. With all the best comedy, the effect of the laughter is often to make the meaning of its intended subject relatable...even manageable. Great horror writers often employ a bleak, ironic kind of humour to intensify but also to soothe the punch the terrors might bring, for example.  Jenny's books have always made me and my class laugh (a lot!) but also provided us with much to discuss and even more to think about deeply. 

Her latest, Grandpa Frank's Great Big Bucket List, is no exception. The vital place of grandparents in children's lives may be the main message that Jenny so beautifully communicates in this book to her readers, but there is also much to be said about the relationships between others: husbands and wives, friends, and most touchingly, I found, fathers and sons. I won't put in any spoilers here, but Jenny has managed with a lightness of touch to say so much about the grown-ups' feelings and to shine a warm, genuine light on the complexities of being grown up. The children who are lucky enough to read this novel will see much in a completely different way when they have heard Grandpa Frank's story.

And there's another story that Jenny has shared, specially for this blog at the start of the tour this week, focusing on her inspiration for the novel. I am delighted to publish it here. 

Inspirational Albert Absalom

I always like to draw from people I know when creating characters and Grandpa Frank is very much a smooshing together of my own Dad, David, who has a similar dry sense of humour and my Grandad Browne, also David. Yes, the family naming tradition the Davenports have in the book comes from my own family’s inability to be creative when it comes to naming offspring. Dad Frank in the story has an interesting employment history, one which is not dissimilar to that of my Grandad, who spent time as a grave digger, a boiler stoker, a roofer, a hospital porter, steel worker, pest controller and ferret keeper, steeple jack, car mechanic and gardener. He always seemed to have something to sell too.

But the idea for the Bucket List actually came to me thanks to a very good friend of mine, who for her Poppa’s 90th Birthday, along with her mum, set him a challenge of 90 things to do when you’re 90. Albert, who was an incredibly active and sharp gentleman (and not at all crochety like Grandpa Frank), continued working as an accountant for my friend loooong after he had retired, and to me is a real inspiration of how to make the most of life.

During the time that he was carrying out his list of challenges, my social media feed would be full of the most joyous pictures of his escapades. He went all over the country flying planes, racing cars, driving tanks, tried his hand at boxing and even took on the role of James Bond! Whenever I saw one of his photos, I felt I was looking at a man living his best life, and this is a message I try and get across in the book. It is never too late to have an adventure. 

Jenny Pearson

And with that inspirational story now in your heart, I couldn't recommend more than to go out and enjoy Grandpa Frank's Great Big Bucket List! Thank you, Jenny, for your lovely words for this blog, and - of course! - for another wonderful book. 

Grandpa Frank's Great Big Bucket List by Jenny Pearson is out on 3rd February 2022. Do support your local independent bookshops where you can! With many thanks to Jenny Pearson and Fritha Lindqvist in the preparation of this blog. Photographs reproduced by permission.