A young boy is bored at his grandparents’ house over summer vacation, and his grandparents are a constant snooze fest, reading long books (“without pictures”) and taking photos of birds. The boy looks in every nook and cranny of their house for something to do and comes upon a suitcase full of pictures and memorabilia of a young couple dancing and going on adventures together. He embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of who this interesting couple could be and why his grandparents have their suitcase. The irreverent tone delightfully gives a wink and nod at young viewers, as they recognize the truth about the couple far sooner than the boy does. The discordance between the boys’ impression of his grandparents and their current actions makes a clever setup: as Grandma sprays Grandpa with a garden hose, the boy claims that “they never do anything fun,” and as he goes through the suitcase, he labels an old Pink Floyd cassette tape as “some kind of spying equipment.” Charcoal and ink illustrations in greens, blues, browns, and pinks offer plenty of background details for viewers to pick up on through multiple read-throughs in addition to adding nuance to the grandparents’ rich history with each other. This is a sweet, welcome reminder to kids that the adults in their lives were kids once too, and that the concept of “fun” can take many forms for different people. NB

– STAR
BCCB, 5/1/24