This picture book in verse has its origins in the viral poem Junauda Petrus first published and performed after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. In it, she envisions a world remade, with police salaries given to grandmothers who cruise the streets in “badass” vintage automobiles, blaring “old-school jams” and Sweet Honey in the Rock, offering help and hope, comfort and resilience.
“If you up to mischief, they will pick you up swiftly in their sweet rides and look at you until you catch shame,” Petrus tells us. There are no punishments here; those in trouble or in need are fed and comforted. Yet the grandmas are “the original warriors” and “They have fought so that you don’t have to, not in the same ways at least.”
If we give the police department to the grandmas, the book continues, they will fill the streets with joyous music, in solar-powered cars they designed themselves. They will share wisdom about the natural world and quotes from authors like Audre Lorde and James Baldwin. “Grandma knows what oppression has done to our souls/and is gonna change it one love temple at a time.”
Illustrator Kristen Uroda’s bold, vibrant illustrations capture both the small details of grandmotherly affection and the broad sweep of life in a caring community. Two of the “grandmas” are depicted with beards, though whether this means they are trans men who transitioned late in life and retained the “grandma” appellation, nonbinary people who feel “grandma” fits them best, cisgender men who have taken on a grandmotherly role, or otherwise, is for readers to decide. End papers are covered with the names of “old-school jams.”
This is a joyous and empowering imagining of a future that could be, and sure to provide much food for discussion among parents and their children.
