Gangsta Granny is a children’s book written by David Walliams, first published by Harper Collins in 2011. It is illustrated by Tony Ross and tells the story of a boy and his granny on a daring and hilarious mission to steal the Crown Jewels.
Notable Characters[]
- Benny
- Ben’s granny
- Ben’s parents
- Raj
- Mr. Parker
- The Queen
Publisher's summary[]
Another hilarious and moving novel from David Walliams, number one bestseller and fastest growing children's author in the country. A story of prejudice and acceptance, funny lists and silly words, this new book has all the hallmarks of David’s previous bestsellers.
Our hero Ben is bored beyond belief after he is made to stay at his grandma's house. She's the boringest grandma ever: all she wants to do is to play Scrabble and eat cabbage soup. But there are two things Ben doesn't know about his grandma:
1) She was once an international jewel thief.
2) All her life, she has been plotting to steal the Crown Jewels, and now she needs Ben's help...
Plot Summary[]
The book starts off with Ben, an eleven year old boy, getting dropped off at his cabbage and Scrabble obsessed granny against his will by his ballroom-dancing obsessed parents, just like every Friday night since he can remember. He believes old people are boring, and has a love for plumbing – something his parents don’t approve of.
The next Friday, Ben buys his favourite plumbing magazine at the local newsagent’s. When he tells the shopkeeper, Raj, that he has to go to boring granny again, the man says that old people aren’t all boring, and trails off, stating that they all have a secret or two.
At Granny’s, they play scrabble until it’s time to go to bed. When Ben is sure that his grandma is asleep, he calls his parents, asking if they can pick him up, as this is such a bore. Realising that his granny’s snoring is gone, he fears that she heard him, and sneaks back to bed, guilty, fearing she overheard him talk badly about her.
Yet another Friday rolls around, and, yet again, Ben gets dropped off at his granny’s. In the morning, when his grandma leaves the kitchen for a moment, Ben, not willing to eat the breakfast she made for him, quickly gets out the biscuit jar, only to find a heap of incredibly valuable jewellery inside. Hearing his her approach again, he sits down and pretends he didn’t see a thing.
Intrigued by the biscuit jar, Ben asks his parents if he can stay over at Granny’s again that night, but his dad informs him after a phone call with the old lady that she’s going out. The boy knows something is up, as this behaviour is not in-character, and her calendar displayed no mention of leaving the house that particular night, so he sneaks out and cycles to his granny’s house and hides in the bushes, ready to secretly follow her.
His granny goes to a jewellery store on her mobility scooter, dressed in all black clothing. About to smash the shop window with a tin of cabbage soup, the boy manages to stop his grandma. They then go home to the lady’s cottage, where she explains that she used to be an international jewel thief nicknamed the Black Cat. Ben promises not to tell anyone about her secret, on the condition that she lets him in on all the details of her crime career, which she does. Not quite finished with the story of how she stole her first diamond ring, the old woman makes her grandson go home, as his parents are probably wondering where he is.
When the boy gets back home, he is drenched in sweat from cycling fast. His mother asks him what happened, and, not knowing what else to respond with, he claims to have been ballroom dancing, stating it to be his dream and passion, although he actually loathes it. Ecstatic, Ben's parents plan to sign him up for a ballroom dancing competition and his mother starts designing ridiculous outfits for her son.
The next morning, after having picked the outfit he thought to be the least awful, the boy sneaks out to his granny’s again, eager to hear the rest of her tales of thievery. However, they get interrupted by the lady’s nosy neighbour, Mr Parker, who is part of the local Neighbourhood Watch.
When the man rings on the doorbell, Ben goes to answer it while his granny hides the jewels she was showing her grandson. Mr Parker manages to force himself into the house, but, just before he can get into the living room where all the jewellery would have been, the boy blurts out that his grandmother is doing naked yoga in there. Not believing the story, he bursts into the room, only to see the lady doing the actions described. The man leaves the house, embarrassed, and the two agree to be more careful in the future.
Ben's granny then tells him that the only notable jewels she hasn’t stolen are the Crown Jewels, which would be an impossible task. However, he offers to help her steal them, but she refuses, and sends him home. Meanwhile, the boy’s parents had secured him a spot in the upcoming dance competition and made progress on sewing the outfit he was to wear.
In one of his plumbing magazines, Ben finds out that the Thames used to be an open sewer, and had pipes from buildings leading into it – even from the Tower of London. The magazine also details that many of the pipes are still where they were, as they often didn’t get dug up when newer ones were installed and the old ones fell out of use. Realising that this means there could be an accessible pipe leading into the building which holds the Crown Jewels, leaving an opportunity to steal them, Ben starts preparing for the heist.
Ben is looking forward to seeing his grandma on Friday to tell her all about the Jewels, however, she is in hospital for a fall she had on Wednesday morning. Upset about what happened to his grandma, the boy is more determined than ever to go on the heist, wanting to do it for her.
The next morning, Ben sneaks out of the house again, and cycles to the hospital to finally tell his granny about the crime he planned. When he arrives at the ward, a doctor is speaking to the lady slowly and quietly, and then apologises to the boy for no apparent reason. Asked what’s wrong, Ben’s granny says that everything is great, and she’s healthy. He then furtively tells the old woman about his plan to steal the Jewels by getting into the Tower of London through the sewage pipe, then enter the Jewel House and blow up the bulletproof glass that protects the items with some chemicals from Science class, while the guards are asleep due something his granny gave the guards earlier that day. The lady agrees to participate in the theft, but only under the condition that they return the Jewels the next night.
The two plan to go on the heist next Friday. Leaving, Ben realises that Mr Parker eavesdropped on the entire conversation, and his granny calls for the matron, who scares the man off. The old lady then, much to her grandson’s surprise, abseils out of a hospital window with bed sheets that had tied together, and drives home on her mobility scooter.
Next Friday evening, when the heist should be happening, Ben has to go to the dance competition he completely forgot about. Due to not having actually practised dancing for a minute, he embarrasses himself completely, getting a zero from all judges, and he and his family speed away from the hall where the event is taking place, chased by ‘an angry mob of ballroom-dancing enthusiasts.’
Ben is sad to have upset his parents by disappointing them, and having missed the heist. When he goes to his room to be alone, his granny suddenly appears by the window in a scuba suit, with another one for her grandson, and they leave to go on the robbery.
Driving on the motorway with a mobility scooter at the speed of three miles per hour, the pair get pulled over by a police officer, whom they falsely inform that they are from the Cling Film Appreciation Society, on their way to a meeting with the Bubble Wrap Appreciation Society in London. The officer, PC Fudge, gives them a lift to a spot by the Thames, directly opposite the Tower of London, from where they swim into the sewage pipe, which they exit via an old toilet.
The two soon find themselves in the courtyard of the Tower of London, where they succeed in drilling open the door to the Jewel House. However, Ben fails to set off the explosives needed to break the glass protecting the Jewels, as he can’t light the two necessary matches available. His granny manages to cheer him up a bit, and, as he’s just about to attempt to smash the glass with a tin of cabbage soup, they get interrupted by someone – the Queen herself.
The Queen explains that she often likes to come into the Jewel House when she can’t sleep at night. Granny then explains that they came here to steal the Crown Jewels, and she made the story of being an international jewel thief up – it was all a lie, to entertain Ben and seem less boring. The jewellery she had all supposedly stolen was worthless, made out of glass and found in an old ice-cream tub at the local charity shop. Having sympathy with Granny, the Queen pardons the two and sends them on their way.
At dawn, Ben and his grandmother return to the lady’s cottage. Granny apologises to her grandson for lying to him, and he forgives her, stating that she’ll always be his gangsta granny. Suddenly, a massive police squad arrives. It turns out that Mr Parker, the nosy neighbour, went to the police after he heard the two discussing their theft in the hospital. However, the officers are obviously unable to find the Crown Jewels on the pair, and a search of Granny’s house also yields no results. When asked for an alibi, PC Fudge, the officer who pulled them over on the motorway and drove them to the thames, is more than happy to provide one, correctly identifying them as what he believes to be members from the Cling Film Appreciation Society, on their way to London to meet with the Bubble Wrap Appreciation Society. The police leave, and Granny and Ben are left alone.
Granny then tells Ben that she has cancer, which was discovered in hospital after her fall. She won’t make it to Christmas. Ben hugs her, crying, and promises to never forget her.
When the boy arrives at home, his parents' car is gone from the driveway. Ben sneaks into his room, gets dressed into pyjamas, and is about to go to sleep when he hears his mum and dad come home, crying, believing that he had run away from home after the competition. He runs out of his room, and they all hug. His parents tell him that they’ll be proud of him no matter what, and they love him very much. They decide to go to Granny’s for a cup of tea.
A week before Christmas, the family is sitting at Granny’s bed in hospice, with her having maybe hours to live. Suddenly, the old lady blinks and opens her eyes, starting to unwrap a slice of cabbage cake from cling film. When his parents are outside, Ben’s granny tells him that he’ll always be her little Benny – a name he used to hate. He promises her that she’ll always be his Gangsta Granny.
On the drive home from the hospital, after Granny has died, Ben asks if he can stop by at the newsagent’s. His dad parks the car, and the shopkeeper, Raj, notices something is up with the boy, and asks what’s wrong. When Ben tells the man what had happened, he hugs him and the child tells him that there was really much more to the old lady than he had ever imagined. Just as the boy is about to leave the shop again, Raj hands him a bag of Murray Mints – Granny’s favourite.
At the Granny’s funeral on Christmas Eve, Ben feels compelled to interrupt the vicar vaguely waffling on, and tell everyone about how incredible his grandma truly was – how she told the most amazing stories, nearly stole the Crown Jewels with him, and more, but they would never believe him. After the funeral, an old lady approaches Ben, saying that she’s Granny’s cousin, Edna. Apparently, Granny was the only person who would ever come visit her in the old age home where she lived, and the two would spend hours playing Scrabble together. Edna then invites Ben over to the home for a round of Scrabble, and he accepts gladly.
Later that evening, Ben sneaks out of his house and cycles to his granny’s house one last time to say goodbye.
On Christmas Day, Ben and his parents watch the Queen’s annual message to the nation, in which she talks about a ‘lady around [her] age and her grandson, at the Tower of London.’ She urges the young people watching the speech to show a little more kindness to the elderly. Most of all, she wishes the youngsters to remember that old people are certainly not boring, and, one day, they might just about shock you. Then, the Queen flashes her Union Jack knickers to the entire country. Ben’s parents are astonished, but he just smiles, thinking that the Queen is a proper gangsta, just like his granny.
Sources[]
(PLACEHOLDER)