In a village in Maramureș, an 84-year-old grandmother created a real phenomenon on the Internet: “I was born too early and I started reading too late”

At 84 years old, Ileana Ivașcu is a grandmother with thousands of virtual grandchildren, to whom she tells stories. From her home in a village on Valea Vișeului in Maramureș, she talks to Romanians everywhere about books, and her channel, “Grandma's Reviews”gather tens of thousands of likes on social networks and makes people want to read.

• “Not a day goes by without reading,” says Ileana Ivașcu, in a dialogue with HotNews, who has read hundreds of books in recent years, from masterpieces of universal literature to manga (comics and Japanese graphic novels).
• The first story in the media about the grandmother who was passionate about reading appeared in the publication Panorama. Later, the grandmother became a character in one of the most important newspapers in Switzerland, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a newspaper founded in 1780.

Although, for most of her life, she did not have the opportunity to read, Ileana Ivașcu ended up having, after the age of 80, one of the most beloved channels for promoting reading in the country. His example can give courage to anyone who thinks it is too late to follow their passion. As entrepreneur Steve Bartlett, author of one of the world's most popular podcasts, The Diary of a CEO, recently wrote, “no matter how old you are, you'll always wish you'd started earlier. But you'll never be younger than you are today.”

We meet grandmother Ileana Ivașcu online, as her followers on the Internet also got to know her. She is in the kitchen of the house in Maramureș, where her grandson, Ștefan Mihai Ivașcu, films her talking about the books she is reading cover to cover.

On the wall behind her is a winter landscape with snowy rooftops. Snow which, although we are already in December, can be found for now only in the painting and in the memories, not in the yard of the house. Grandma remembers what the winter holidays were like in her childhood.

Back then, my mother sewed new clothes for her and her five siblings, which the children wore and went to play in the snow. “The cocoons were rolling, there was a big man and you could only see the children's heads and the cocoon. What a beauty it must have been! Each child took care of that cocoon made by the mother”, says Ileana Ivașcu.

He remembers the table where the family and neighbors alike could sit. “The man gathered to have everything he needed until a celebration. And there were many children, it was beautiful, more beautiful than today. When we gathered at the table, the table was full. And there were also foreigners, some neighbors who came to us, and my mother would share with everyone. The big pot in the middle of the table, and two would eat from a plate,” says the grandmother.

The first book he read was the Bible

But what the woman from Maramureș, who worked all her life in the fields and in the household, lacked then and later, were books. At the time when she was born, children did three or four classes, then they started working. “When I was young, I didn't have books,” she confesses. “I didn't have books and I didn't have time. When I was strong and strong I went to work, I didn't have time for books. But I always had a passion. I didn't leave a paper unread, a newspaper,” says the grandmother.

Ileana Ivașcu, reading in the evening in her house. Image Source: Grandma's Reviews

From Dostoevsky to Harry Potter

“The first book was the Bible. An Adventist brought it to me. I read the Bible together with an older neighbor, since the world. We used to compete, to see how much we could read, each of us”, she says.

And his passion was passed on to his son, and then to his grandson, both avid readers. After losing her son, she began to feel loneliness, and her grandson began to bring her books.

“What to think when you know you're on the last hundred meters and it's night and one night of this is a long winter, and you're sitting alone? You have to take the book, read and laugh alone with the book at the same time. And with the people in the book”, says Ileana Ivașcu.

Some of the books read by Ileana Ivașcu. Image source: Grandma's Reviews

One day, seeing how passionately she reads, Ștefan Mihai Ivașcu thought of filming her talking about books and posting the images on the internet. This is how the “Grandmother's Reviews” channel appeared, where some videos gather tens of thousands of views on TikTok or YouTube. There, the grandmother talks about works by Feodor Dostoevsky or Gabriel García Márquez, but also about science fiction series, such as “Dune”, or fantasy, such as Harry Potter. “I've read all the Harry Potter volumes. I know they were children's books. But I liked them and read them. That's how they say the old man catches the children's minds,” jokes the grandmother.

What did reading give him? “A Bit of Intelligence”

Not a day goes by without reading. “I don't have much, but as much as I can. It's impossible, because that's not life, in which you don't document yourself at least from a book,” he explains. He thus managed to read hundreds of books which he numbered, signed and placed in his library. “I prayed to God to let me finish all the shelves. And so I started other books again. I have one more row. Of course I haven't finished them yet and maybe I'll never finish them because I can't ask God for the impossible,” she believes.

Ileana Ivașcu reads “A Century of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Image source: Grandma's Reviews

How does he feel that reading gave him? “A little bit of intelligence, a little bit, in addition to the big ones, in addition to the people who are intelligent, they also gave me a little bit of books,” she believes.

“Children live in their own world and they don't want to read anymore. I would encourage them not to let a day go by without reading. It's the greatest human sin,” continues the grandmother.

Her biggest regret is that she didn't start reading when she was younger. “I was born too early and started reading too late,” she says.