Eighteen Flowers for Grandma: A Gift of Chai
By Alison Goldberg and illustrated by Jesse White
Eighteen Flowers for Grandma releases today from Red Comet Press! We are so excited to send this book out into the world!
About Eighteen Flowers for Grandma
A celebration of family, culture, and the enduring bond between generations.
Sadie’s grandmother is studying art and invites Sadie to learn and share her passion. But Sadie’s grandmother passes on more than her love of art to her grandchild; she also shares her knowledge of Jewish cultural traditions. Sadie learns about the meaning of “chai”—the Hebrew word for life—and the significance of the lucky number eighteen. Her grandmother will soon graduate from college, so Sadie commits herself to finding a perfect way to celebrate with a gift that combines her love of art and newly learned traditions.
“A gentle tale of intergenerational bonding that will appeal to budding artists.”—Kirkus Reviews
How our grandmothers inspired Eighteen Flowers for Grandma
Alison: This story is inspired by my own grandmother, Eva Dersofi, who graduated from college when she was seventy-eight years old. She had taken some college classes as a young adult but didn’t have the chance to finish her program. When she was in her seventies, she attended a local community college to pursue her love of art. Eventually, she realized that with only a few more courses, she could receive her degree. Eva’s commitment to lifelong learning is one of the seeds of this book. As I developed the story, I thought about how it was art that drew my grandmother back to school. Eva gave me my first oil paints and easel, and I loved to draw with pastels at her kitchen table. In Eighteen Flowers for Grandma I wrote about a grandma who shares art with her granddaughter, like Eva did with me.
Jesse: The sharing of creativity across generations, as Eighteen Flowers for Grandma shows us, is such a beautiful, powerful concept–and it’s one that I was able to explore and understand more deeply thanks to my own grandmother. Although she’d probably never think of or introduce herself as an artist, she was just that. My grandmother created lovely watercolor paintings, often to illustrate original poems and prayers that she wrote. In addition to being a creator herself, she was also a big supporter of my dad’s journey as an artist and in turn, my own. I have one of her pieces hanging on the wall in my studio; it’s a lovely reminder of her and of the connection we share through art. I looked at it often while I was creating the illustrations for our book, allowing special memories of my grandmother to help guide my understanding of Sadie’s relationship to hers.
The book!
Order now
Eighteen Flowers for Grandma is available where books are sold.
Order copies from our local independent bookstores:
Alison: Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA
Jesse: Golden Fig Books in Durham, NC
Or find the links for other booksellers.
Book launch events
Alison will read the book and share an art activity at these events.
Author and illustrator bios
Alison Goldberg is a writer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the author of I Love You for Miles and Miles. She also wrote the award-winning nonfiction picture book Bottle Tops, a biography of the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. Eighteen Flowers for Grandma was inspired by her own grandmother, who graduated from college at the age of seventy-eight. You can visit Alison online at alisongoldberg.com.
Jesse White is an illustrator, author, and muralist who creates whimsical, wonder-filled work about imagination and adventure. Nature is her core throughline, a focus that comes from her childhood in rural North Carolina. Jesse graduated with a BFA in studio art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her master’s in art education from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her first author-illustrator project, Brave Like Fireweed, was recently published by Union Square Kids. She lives in Durham, North Carolina. Visit Jesse online at www.jessewhiteillustration.com.