Technology can be overwhelming with its “I need it yesterday” mindset, but the special complicity between grandads and grandsons has been with us since time immemorial. And it’s all the more indispensable in an era of harassed parents flitting between them.

Children’s and Young Adult

The Wednesday-afternoon outings of a grandfather, Karel Kroupa, and his eight-year-old grandson with the same name previously delighted visitors to the 2020 Bologna Book Fair in It’s the Underground, Man!, with their witty dialogue and pleasingly minimalist design by Jan Šrámek and Veronika Vlková. Now their adventures continue in this exploration of the surface of Prague. The smartphone the grandfather hasn’t yet mastered, which Karel’s mother has made a prerequisite for the duo’s dream trip to visit the London underground, becomes an excuse to test the hypothesis that every technological advance had to start somewhere – even the analogue ones. And so the grey-haired adventurer and his young protégé visit flea markets, brownfields and other corners of the city where these obsolete appliances can be unearthed. Along the way, they help each other out, because no-one is born wise, mobile apps won’t always save us, and “common sense” and other “old-school” concepts don’t belong on the scrap heap. The refreshing humour and deliberate use of repetition in the story reinforce the common ground between the childhood and old age of the two Karel Kroupas. Milada Rezková’s empathetic approach breaks down the nonsensical modern-day divide between Boomers and Zoomers and demonstrates the cultivation of the male principle within the family, which is so vital for a child’s discovery of the world.

Age 7+

Read an excerpt from the book here.