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Take A Chance, Gramps
Janie Higgins is all set to enter seventh grade. She's excited about going to a new school and making new friends-especially since her oldest friend, Alicia, will be starting school with her. But disaster strikes when Janie learns that Alicia and her family are moving clear across the country! Now she has to start a new school...alone. Worse, she's lost her best friend forever. Janie isn't the only one coping with a loss, however, as she discovers when she tries to "cheer up" her recently widowed grandfather. What she learns is that-young or old-if you want something good to happen, you have to take chance.
148 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 1996
6 people want to read
About the author
Jean Davies Okimoto
35 books14 followers“I’ve always had an appreciation for the constant balancing act between career and family and for women in the arts it can be a high wire act.”
Okimoto, who was born in 1942 in Cleveland, Ohio, knows of what she speaks. An acclaimed children’s author, playwright, retired psychotherapist, wife, mother, and grandmother, she has worn many hats since Putnam published her first book in 1978.
With The Love Ceiling, her eighteenth book and one she calls “my debut novel for my own age group,” Okimoto delivers a charming and poignant exploration of a long marriage and the conflicts that arise in both in retirement and in parenting adult children. The roles of a woman in her sixties: wife, mother, grandmother and artist are richly drawn with complexity and depth.
Many of the themes resonate for women across generations, but the author is especially passionate about reaching older women, a huge segment of the population which Okimoto feels has not been well served by large publishers. With rave reviews from early readers and endorsers such as Christiane Northrup, MD author and host of the PBS television special Mother-Daughter Wisdom, Okimoto’s debut adult novel is fast becoming a book club favorite.
The Love Ceiling won top honors in the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards adding to the author’s numerous awards which include Smithsonian Notable Book, the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, the Washington Governor’s Award, the Green Earth Book Award, and the International Reading Association Readers Choice Award. Jean Davies Okimoto’s books and short stories have been translated into Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Turkish, German, and Hebrew. A resident of the Pacific Northwest since 1968, Jeanie Okimoto and her husband live on Vashon Island near Seattle.
Okimoto, who was born in 1942 in Cleveland, Ohio, knows of what she speaks. An acclaimed children’s author, playwright, retired psychotherapist, wife, mother, and grandmother, she has worn many hats since Putnam published her first book in 1978.
With The Love Ceiling, her eighteenth book and one she calls “my debut novel for my own age group,” Okimoto delivers a charming and poignant exploration of a long marriage and the conflicts that arise in both in retirement and in parenting adult children. The roles of a woman in her sixties: wife, mother, grandmother and artist are richly drawn with complexity and depth.
Many of the themes resonate for women across generations, but the author is especially passionate about reaching older women, a huge segment of the population which Okimoto feels has not been well served by large publishers. With rave reviews from early readers and endorsers such as Christiane Northrup, MD author and host of the PBS television special Mother-Daughter Wisdom, Okimoto’s debut adult novel is fast becoming a book club favorite.
The Love Ceiling won top honors in the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards adding to the author’s numerous awards which include Smithsonian Notable Book, the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, the Washington Governor’s Award, the Green Earth Book Award, and the International Reading Association Readers Choice Award. Jean Davies Okimoto’s books and short stories have been translated into Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Turkish, German, and Hebrew. A resident of the Pacific Northwest since 1968, Jeanie Okimoto and her husband live on Vashon Island near Seattle.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 31, 2023
I am so glad I read this book. I didn't know anything about this book at all, except that supposedly it was the ONLY book my friend Travis in high school ever read. That's what he told me, anyway. Not sure if it's exactly the truth. So when I, at age 42, found this book at the Little Free Library near my house, I had to take a chance and read it. I liked it! It was sweet. I loved the challenge of saying "hi" to people. I even liked the little budding romances. I wrote down a couple of things in my Keepers journal too.
These are so true, I thought:
"You always know when people don't want you to join in. They don't even have to tell you to go away. You just know that they don't want you."
"The victory is in the struggle!"
This reminds me of what our daughter wrote in an essay last semester, which was her final semester of high school (She graduated a semester early, she worked so hard! Still proud!) She was explaining what success looked like to her, like, "What is your own personal definition of success?" kind of thing. She said something to the effect of "struggling through things," and knowing what I know about her and about her world...that was priceless to read and reminded me to REMEMBER that for myself!
I'm glad that if Travis really did read only one book ever in life, it was this book! That'd be all right.
Oh, I did find one part that I was like, "I don't think so." It was when Janie was learning to dance with Gramps and she couldn't reach her arms up on his shoulders. I was like, "What? Is Cramps huge? She's 12. Surely she can reach his shoulders."
These are so true, I thought:
"You always know when people don't want you to join in. They don't even have to tell you to go away. You just know that they don't want you."
"The victory is in the struggle!"
This reminds me of what our daughter wrote in an essay last semester, which was her final semester of high school (She graduated a semester early, she worked so hard! Still proud!) She was explaining what success looked like to her, like, "What is your own personal definition of success?" kind of thing. She said something to the effect of "struggling through things," and knowing what I know about her and about her world...that was priceless to read and reminded me to REMEMBER that for myself!
I'm glad that if Travis really did read only one book ever in life, it was this book! That'd be all right.
Oh, I did find one part that I was like, "I don't think so." It was when Janie was learning to dance with Gramps and she couldn't reach her arms up on his shoulders. I was like, "What? Is Cramps huge? She's 12. Surely she can reach his shoulders."
February 1, 2021
Rounding down because making friends is all too easy for both grandfather and girl. Saying 'hi' in the hallways isn't going to automatically make you popular (more likely approaches are to arrange share homework woes, or give compliments like 'I like your bracelet, bookcover, barette...') and the first widow you ask to dance isn't necessarily going to be the one you pair off with. Also the segue about Gramps needing to learn a lesson about credit cards and infomercials is lame/implausible.
But it's a fun story with its heart in the right place. I would have liked it when I was 9-12.
But it's a fun story with its heart in the right place. I would have liked it when I was 9-12.
June 12, 2009
This a great book for those who like first romances and humor also family
June 3, 2009
this book was sooooo freakin' good i had to read it again you may not like it as i did though
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews