46 pages • 1 hour read
Robert Kimmel SmithThe War With Grandpa
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1984A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Robert Kimmel Smith Books
Robert Kimmel Smith has written many books for young readers, and they have much in common with The War with Grandpa. The main character of Bobby Baseball is 10 years old—the same age as Peter. Bobby narrates his story like Peter does. Both protagonists love to write, but Bobby also adores baseball. He can’t stop thinking about it. When he grows up, he wants to be an elite baseball player. Put in conversation with Bobby Baseball, another theme that appears in The War with Grandpa is the theme of preoccupation. Smith’s characters need something to consume them, whether it’s a sport or a war. Baseball takes over Bobby’s mind, and war captures most of Peter’s attention. The fixations lead to conflict. Bobby fights with his dad, and Peter fights with Grandpa. The boys are stubborn, and they must change to avoid further upset.
Chocolate Fever doesn’t feature a first-person narrator, but it contains a hyper-focused young person. Henry Green can’t get enough chocolate—he puts it on everything, and it puts him in a precarious situation. As with Bobby Baseball and The War with Grandpa, single-mindedness can lead to trouble. While Bobby and Peter have conflicts with their parents, Henry doesn’t fight with his mom and dad—they let him consume dangerous quantities of chocolate. In the context of Chocolate Fever, conflicts with parents aren’t a negative. Parents should set boundaries. While Bobby Baseball and The War with Grandpa pivot between sadness and humor, Chocolate Fever stays silly, with Henry considering an infatuation with cinnamon. Henry doesn’t learn his lesson, but Bobby and Peter gain a fresh perspective.
Literary Context: Conflicts Between Children and Adults
Smith’s novel is part of a large canon of stories for young readers that center on conflicts between kids and adults. In Louis Sachar’s novel There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom (1987), Bradley Chalkers (a fifth-grader like Peter) is at war with his teacher, parents, and guidance counselor, Carla. Bradley’s relationship with Carla mirrors Peter’s relationship with Grandpa. One moment, Bradley is mean to Carla, but other times, he’s incredibly nice to her. Though Peter declares war on his grandpa, they have pleasant moments, such as when they fish together. Both Bradley and Peter have a conscience, though Bradley tries much harder to suppress his. As with Peter, honest and open communication helps Bradley, and both boys end up in positive situations.
In Roald Dahl’s The Witches (1983), the unnamed narrator teams up with his grandma to take down a group of witches posing as women. In Dahl’s story, the younger person and the older person are a duo. However, in Smith’s book, Grandpa and Peter are kind of a team: They work together to keep the war going and to hide it from the other family members.
In Dahl’s Matilda (1998), the titular character unites with Miss Honey (an adult) to take down Miss Trunchbull, the principal. Unlike Grandpa Jack, Miss Trunchbull is a thoroughly odious person. Matilda’s parents are demonstrably wicked, though Peter’s dramatic voice turns his parents into oppressors.
Like Peter, Harriet M. Welsch, the titular character of Louise Fitzhugh’s novel Harriet the Spy (1964), loves to write. She has a close relationship with her nanny, Ole Golly. As with Peter, Harriet has conflicts with her parents, and they make a change without consulting Harriet—they fire Ole Golly. As with The War with Grandpa, poor communication leads to conflict, but effective communication (honest, thoughtful dialogue) leads to resolution.
