My Gran the
Gorilla is an adolescent novel written by Jackie French and illustrated
by Stephen Michael King is a part of the Wacky
Families series. This book is a clever twist on the Tarzan story and is modified
to be set in Australia. The story is about TJ who is the son of Tarzan and
Jane, but centres around TJ and his relationship with his Gran, who happens to
be a gorilla. TJ also has a giant skateboarding slug who knows sign language as
a pet which adds to the endearing silliness of the story.
This book is a fun read and is a particularly useful for
exercise involving reading out loud. This book requires many different voices,
accents and several types of onomatopoeia throughout the story which requires
the reader to change their tone and voice to get the full effect intended by
the author.
This book is actually surprisingly deep in its language as TJ’s
friend Linda is a self-confessed sesquipedalian (someone who is fond of long words).
She also uses words such as perambulate and sumptuous, amongst others, which suggests
French wanted to help boost students’ vocabulary. This alone would suggest a
mid-to-high primary school student, or possibly higher, could benefit from this
text.
My Gran the
Gorilla uses a lot of humour which is a definite drawcard for students.
The plot is silly and fun, while also introducing inferential meaning (reading
between the lines) as the reader must try to guess what is happening with the
wombat poaching that is going on, as well as what secret Linda is hiding.
This book is best suited for students from Years 4-5.
Josh Rouse
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