Patty Pick for 6/9/16 is My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrick Backman

As many of you may remember, another wonderful book by Fredrick Backman was 
selected as a Patty Pick! One of my all-time favorite books, "A Man Called Ove", was a Patty Pick on 1/21/16. This in one book you need to read for yourself. I promise that you will not be able to walk away after reading that book without some thought of someone in your life that you judged and categorized without really getting to know the real reason they were acting in the strange way you witnessed. Who doesn't know a grumpy, old man? Well, enough about that wonderful book, just read it, please!

Fredrik Backman's second novel, "my grandmother asked me to tell she's sorry", was just as delightful as his first. I was not sure about reading a novel with a seven-year-old narrator, but her voice is so pure and true you will swear there was a real seven-year-old who wrote this book! You also have to love her grandmother, who invents a magical land that is populated with strange people and beings to help ease the pain from the tortuous bullying that Elsa is suffering through at school.

The story of this different but amazing little girl with her unique view of the world, will bring joy to your heart and tears to your eyes. Sometimes at the same time and sometimes not. As we follow Elsa around after her grandmother dies to deliver letters for her, we meet the special people that she knew and the other owners of apartments in their building. You will read how it is really a small world and you never know what other people are experiencing in their lives or have endured before you knew them. 

As the stories of the people that Elsa's grandmother is trying to apologize to come out one-by-one, these same people will all be put to work. Their new job is to protect Elsa and her grandmother hopes will manage to heal themselves along the way. I could go on forever about this delightful book but I will let Backman's words speak for themselves. Elsa's best and only friend, her grandmother told her, "Only different people change the world, Granny used to say. "No one normal has ever changed a crapping thing." And this true statement, "if you hate the one who hates, you could risk becoming like the one you hate." So take it from this little "different" girl, and remember those that existed and don't turn into one of those people who hate. Don't wait, go read this book!