SuitabookGrandma lives in a perfume village
Suzhen Fang
- Reading
- Read together if possible, pausing around Grandma’s frailty and death. Invite the child to share their own thoughts about remembering someone, without presenting the heavenly image as a required belief.
- Themes
- Family care across generations: Xiao Le visits Grandma, plays with her and helps her, with encouragement from his mother. Care is presented as a meaningful way for Xiao Le to share time and connection with his grandmother.
- Grief and remembrance: After Grandma dies, Xiao Le comforts his mother by imagining that rain connects Grandma with the living. The book presents this favourably.
- Heaven and emotional meaning: Xiao Le says Grandma’s Perfume Village in heaven cannot be reached by train but can be accessed by the heart. Heaven functions in the described consoling image as a way to express continued emotional connection, though the story’s wider treatment of belief is unclear.
- Worth knowing
- Expect emotional material around frailty and bereavement. The tone appears caring rather than frightening, but the full treatment of Grandma’s illness, death and its aftermath is not clear.