"A tale of friendship and loyalty, with strong messages about dementia and the impact it has on everyone, racism, perseverance and reality and not being judgemental."
This is the story of Luca, his family and his friends.
Luca is 12, not the perfect pupil, but with ideas of how he would like to see his life pan out as an adult, a boy with many mature and loyal traits. He wants to take over his family’s ice cream café, which is not thriving, but he has ideas. There is a recipe from his grandparents, which claims to be the best vanilla ice cream in the world and Luca believes if he can recreate this, the café will prosper. He even wins a competition for his recipe.
On the surface, this story seems to have a straightforward plot, make icecream, save café, but there is so much more to this lovely book. It is a tale of friendship and loyalty. Luca’s friendships with his peers, but also his family relationships. A father, who has moved to Italy. In Luca’s own words, ‘he has done a runner’. His wonderful relationship with his grandmother, who throughout the book has a progressive deterioration in her mental health and is diagnosed with dementia. There are also sub stories. His friendship with Sitara, an Afghanistan immigrant, conveys so many of her difficulties and is so insightful of the hardships she faced leaving her country and the prejudice she has faced in Scotland.
The book is set in Glasgow and the colloquial expressions and dialect take a little getting used to. By the end I was reading them in my head with a far more confident lilt! At one point, Luca travels to Italy to visit his father. A wonderfully descriptive and colourful chapter, but also one where Luca comes to terms with his father’s new life and where he learns more about his past.
There are so many strong messages running through this book, dementia and the impact it has on everyone, racism, perseverance and reality and not being judgemental. It would make a super text for discussion in class. Although many of the themes are serious, the book is also humorous and a very honest look at human nature and characteristics. The conclusion is both heartwarming and uplifting. A really good read.
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