Genre: Family Comedy
Target Audience: Ages 8–12
Format: Feature Film
Status: synopsis completed, book fully written.

Logline
To his grandson, Grandpa is so ancient he must have never even gone to school. But back in Grandpa’s day, school was the least of anyone’s worries—hungry dinosaurs were lurking everywhere. Determined to bond with his grandson, Grandpa makes him a promise: this time, they’ll finish school together.

Description

Synopsis

My Grandpa Never Went to School

Synopsis

This is a story about the importance of communication within a family.

Children think their grandparents have always been old. But behind every older person is a whole lifetime of adventures, friendships, mistakes, and dreams their grandchildren may know nothing about.

Grandpa and his grandson have a difficult relationship. Grandpa is constantly worrying about the boy’s schoolwork—but as far as his grandson is concerned, what could Grandpa possibly know about being a kid? He is so old, he probably never was one. He probably never even went to school.

Hoping to bridge the gap between them, Grandpa tells his grandson the story of his own school days.

Of course, that was a very, very long time ago—back when people lived in caves and dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Going to school was dangerous. Not every student even made it to graduation. Just getting to class meant running across a field patrolled by a wild brontosaurus. The school itself stood high in a baobab tree. Giant butterflies filled the sky, while elephants were tiny enough to fit inside a matchbox.

Every school day was an adventure—for the teachers as much as the students. And struggling students had it worst of all: one wrong answer could land them in the jaws, claws, or traps of some prehistoric creature.

That, Grandpa explains, is what happened to his classmate and best friend, Pablo. One small mistake on Grandpa’s part—and poor Pablo was carried away into the sky by pterodactyls.

After hearing the story, the grandson makes Grandpa promise to finally finish school.

And Grandpa takes the promise seriously.

To prove it, he makes an arrangement with the boy’s school and enrolls as a student himself. Suddenly, Grandpa and grandson are going to school together, doing homework together—and, little by little, becoming friends.

But once again, Grandpa fails to finish school.

He ends up in the hospital, and his grandson becomes convinced that Grandpa is faking it just to get out of going to class. Grandpa insists that he simply has to work. In fact, he says, the hospital has offered him a very important position: assistant to the cleaner.

He changes into work clothes and pretends to be a janitor.

His grandson is furious. After everything Grandpa promised, he has abandoned school for an unskilled job.

What the boy doesn’t know is that Grandpa is dying.

At Grandpa’s request, the family doesn’t tell him directly.

That same day, the grandson discovers something that changes everything: Grandpa’s diplomas, photographs—and evidence that the old man he thought had never even gone to school was actually a renowned explorer.

There is also a letter.

Grandpa apologizes for treating his grandson as if he were too young for a serious conversation. And suddenly, the ridiculous dinosaur stories begin to look different.

In one photograph, Grandpa is clinging to a tree while escaping from rhinoceroses—just as, in his imaginary school story, he escaped from dinosaurs.

Then the boy finds a newspaper article about Grandpa’s longtime colleague, Pablo Jimenez, who died while saving people from lava. On it, Grandpa has written:

Forgive me, my faithful Pablo.

At the end of his letter, Grandpa leaves his grandson one final message:

I spent my life studying and working, caring for our planet and exploring it. Now it’s time for me to explore the sky...

The grandson finally understands.

And he finds comfort in one thought: Grandpa will now have a chance to meet Pablo again—and finally talk to him about the secret he carried with him all his life.