Busy Day for a Good Grandmother

by Margaret Mahy, Margaret Chamberlain

An ultra-modern grandmother, Mrs. Oberon, comes to her son's rescue--by land, sea, and air--with a piece of cock-a-hoop honey cake, the only thing that will keep her teething grandson from crying.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

26 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Margaret Mahy was a well-known New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. While the plots of many of her books have strong supernatural elements, her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up.

Her books The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance both received the Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association. There have 100 children's books, 40 novels, and 20 collections of her stories published. Among her children's books, A Lion in the Meadow and The Seven Chinese Brothers and The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate are considered national classics. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic.

For her contributions to children's literature she was made a member of the Order of New Zealand. The Margaret Mahy Medal Award was established by the New Zealand Children's Book Foundation in 1991 to provide recognition of excellence in children's literature, publishing and literacy in New Zealand. In 2006 she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award (known as the Little Nobel Prize) in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature".

Margaret Mahy died on 23 July 2012.

On 29 April 2013, New Zealand’s top honour for children’s books was renamed the New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret...

Reviews

[Karen Maurer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now that I am a grandmother, I like this book even more - especially the ending.

[Shelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun (yet slightly wordy) picture book about a unique grandmother who travels great lengths to bring her teething grandson some cock-a-hoop honey cake, which is guaranteed to sooth enflamed gums. After reading this children will feel cheated that their own grandparents are nowhere near as cool as the one in this story.

[The Brothers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A grandmother gets a panicked call from her son because his child is teething and he's run out of cock-a-hoop honey cake, which will soothe the poor tyke. She promises to come and deliver some cake, but getting to her son's house is quite an adventure.

Very fun illustrations.